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PRIMITIVE  LOVE  AND 
LOVE-STORIES- 


BY 


HENRY   T.   FINCK 
it 

AUTHOR   OF   "  ROMANTIC    LOVE   AND   PERSONAL   BEAUTY,' 
"  LOTOS-TIME    IN   JAPAN,"    ETC. 


YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
1899 


3S338 


COPYRIGHT,  1899,  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


All  rights  reserved 


TROW   DIRECTORY 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANr 
NEW  YORK 


PEEFACE 

ON"  page  654  of  the  present  volume  reference  is  made  to  a 
custom  prevalent  in  northern  India  of  employing  the  family 
barber  to  select  the  boys  and  girls  to  be  married,  it  being  con- 
sidered too  trivial  and  humiliating  an  act  for  the  parents  to 
attend  to.  ,  In  pronouncing  such  a  custom  ludicrous  and  out- 
rageous we  must  not  forget  that  not  much  more  than  a  cen- 
tury ago  an  English  thinker,,  Samuel  Johnson,  expressed  the 
opinion  that  marriages  might  as  well  be  arranged  by  the  Lord 
Chancellor  without  consulting  the  parties  concerned.  Scho- 
penhauer had,  indeed,  reason  to  claim  that  it  had  remained 
for  him  to  discover  the  significance  and  importance  of  love. 
His  ideas  on  the  relations  between  love,  youth,  health,  and 
beauty  opened  up  a  new  vista  of  thought ;  yet  it  was  limited, 
because  the  question  of  heredity  was  only  just  beginning 
to  be  understood,  and  the  theory  of  evolution,  which  has 
revolutionized  all  science,  had  not  yet  appeared  on  the 
horizon. 

The  new  science  of  anthropology,  with  its  various  branches, 
including  sociology,  ethnology,  and  comparative  psychology, 
has  within  the  last  two  or  three  decades  brought  together 
and  discussed  an  immense  number  of  facts  relating  to  man 
in  his  various  stages  of  development — savagery,  barbarism, 
semi-civilization,  and  civilization.  Monographs  have  ap- 
peared in  great  numbers  on  various  customs  and  institutions, 
including  marriage,  which  has  been  discussed  in  several  ex- 
haustive volumes.  Love  alone  has  remained  to  be  specially 
considered  from  an  evolutionary  point  of  view.  My  own 
book,  Romantic  Love  and  Personal  Beauty,  which  appeared 
in  1887,  did  indeed  touch  upon  this  question,  but  very  briefly, 


viii  PREFACE 

inasmuch  as  its  subject,  as  the  title  indicates,  was  modern 
romantic  love.  A  book  on  such  a  subject  was  naturally  and 
easily  written  virginibus  puerisque ;  whereas  the  present 
volume,  being  concerned  chiefly  with  the  love-affairs  of  sav- 
ages and  barbarians,  could  not  possibly  have  been  subjected 
to  the  same  restrictions.  Care  has  been  taken,  however,  to 
exclude  anything  that  might  offend  a  healthy  taste. 

If  it  has  been  necessary  in  some  chapters  to  multiply  un- 
pleasant facts,  the  reader  must  blame  the  sentimentalists  who 
have  so  persistently  whitewashed  the  savages  that  it  has  be- 
come necessary,  in  the  interest  of  truth,  to  show  them  in 
their  real  colors.  I  have  indeed  been  tempted  to  give  my 
book  the  sub-title  "  A  Vindication  of  Civilization "  against 
the  misrepresentations  of  these  sentimentalists  who  try  to 
create  the  impression  that  savages  owe  all  their  depravity  to 
contact  with  whites,  having  been  originally  spotless  angels. 
If  my  pictures  of  the  unadulterated  savage  may  in  some  cases 
produce  the  same  painful  impression  as  the  sights  in  a  mu- 
seum's "  chamber  of  horrors,"  they  serve,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  show  us  that,  bad  as  we  may  be,  collectively,  we  are  in- 
finitely superior  in  love-affairs,  as  in  everything  else,  to  those 
primitive  peoples ;  and  thus  we  are  encouraged  to  hope  for 
further  progress  in  the  future  in  the  direction  of  purity  and 
altruism. 

Although  I  have  been  obliged  under  the  circumstances  to 
indulge  in  a  considerable  amount  of  controversy,  I  have  taken 
great  pains  to  state  the  views  of  my  opponents  fairly,  and 
to  be  strictly  impartial  in  presenting  facts  with  accuracy. 
Nothing  could  be  more  foolish  than  the  ostrich  policy,  so 
often  indulged  in,  of  hiding  facts  in  the  hope  that  opponents 
will  not  see  them.  Had  I  found  any  data  inconsistent  with 
my  theory  I  should  have  modified  it  in  accordance  with  them. 
I  have  also  been  very  careful  in  regard  to  my  authorities. 
The  chief  cause  of  the  great  confusion  reigning  in  anthropo- 
logical literature  is  that,  as  a  rule,  evidence  is  piled  up  with  a 
pitchfork.  Anyone  who  has  been  anywhere  and  expressed  a 
globe-trotter's  opinion  is  cited  as  a  witness,  with  deplorable 
results.  I  have  not  only  taken  most  of  my  multitudinous 


PREFACE  ix 

facts  from  the  original  sources,  but  I  have  critically  examined 
the  witnesses  to  see  what  right  they  have  to  parade  as  ex- 
perts ;  as  in  the  cases,  for  instance,  of  Catlin,  School  craft, 
Chapman,  and  Stephens,  who  are  responsible  for  many  "false 
facts  "  that  have  misled  philosophers. 

In  writing  a  book  like  this  the  author's  function  is  com- 
parable to  that  of  an  architect  who  gets  his  materials  from 
various  parts  of  the  world  and  fashions  them  into  a  building 
of  more  or  less  artistic  merit.  The  anthropologist  has  to 
gather  his  facts  from  a  greater  variety  of  sources  than  any 
other  writer,  and  from  the  very  nature  of  his  subject  he  is 
obliged  to  quote  incessantly.  The  following  pages  embody 
the  results  of  more  than  twelve  years'  research  in  the  libraries 
of  America  and  Europe.  In  weaving  my  quotations  into  a 
continuous  fabric  I  have  adopted  a  plan  which  I  believe  to  be 
ingenious,  and  which  certainly  saves  space  and  annoyance. 
Instead  of  citing  the  full  titles  of  books  every  time  they  are 
referred  to  either  in  the  text  or  in  footnotes,  I  merely  give 
the  author's  name  and  the  page  number,  if  only  one  of  his 
books  is  referred  to  ;  and  if  there  are  several  books,  I  give 
the  initials — say  Bririton,  M.  N.  W.,  130;  which  means 
Brinton's  Myths  of  the  New  World,  page  130.  The  key  to 
the  abbreviations  will  be  found  at  the  end  of  the  volume  in 
the  bibliography,  which  also  includes  an  author's  index,  sepa- 
rate from  the  index  of  subjects.  This  avoids  the  repetition 
of  titles  or  of  the  customary  useless  "  loc.  cit.,"  and  spares  the 
reader  the  annoyance  of  constant  interruption  of  his  reading 
to  glance  at  the  bottom  of  the  page, 

Not  a  few  of  the  critics  of  my  first  book,  ignoring  the  dif- 
ference between  a  romantic  love-story  and  a  story  of  romantic 
love,  fancied  they  could  refute  me  by  simply  referring  to 
some  ancient  romantic  story.  To  prevent  a  repetition  of  that 
procedure  I  have  adorned  these  pages  with  a  number  of  love- 
stories,  adding  critical  comments  wherever  called  for.  These 
stories,  I  believe,  augment,  not  only  the  interest  but  the  scien- 
tific value  of  the  monograph.  In  gathering  them  I  have 
often  wondered  why  no  one  anticipated  me,  though,  to  be 
sure,  it  was  not  an  easy  task,  as  they  are  scattered  in  hun- 


x  PREFACE 

dreds  of  books,  and  in  scientific  periodicals  where  few  would 
look  for  them.  At  the  same  time  I  confess  that  to  me  the 
tracing  of  the  plot  of  the  evolution  of  love,  with  its  diverse 
obstacles,  is  more  fascinating  than  the  plot  of  an  individual 
love-story.  At  any  rate,  since  we  have  thousands  of  such 
love-stories,  I  am  perhaps  not  mistaken  in  assuming  that  the 
story  of  love  itself  will  be  welcomed  as  a  pleasant  change. 

H.  T.  F. 
NEW  YORK,  October  27,  1899. 


CONTENTS 


HISTORY  OF  AN  IDEA Pages  1-19 

Origin  of  a  Book,  1— Skeptical  Critics,  2— Robert  Burton,  3— 
Hegel  on  Greek  Love,  4— Shelley  on  Greek  Love,  6-  -Macau - 
lay,  Bulwer-Lytton,  Gautier,  8— Goldsmith  and  Rousseau, 
8— Love  a  Compound  Feeling,  9— Herbert  Spencer's  Analy- 
sis, 11 — Active  Impulses  Must  be  Added,  13 — Sensuality  the 
Antipode  of  Love,  14— The  Word  Romantic,  15— Animals 
Higher  than  Savages,  16— Love  the  Last,  Not  the  First, 
Product  of  Civilization,  16— Plan  of  this  Volume,  17— Greet 
Sentimentality,  18— Importance  of  Love,  18. 

HOW  SENTIMENTS  CHANGE   AND  GRO W  ....  Pages  20-51 

No  Love  of  Romantic  Scenery,  20— No  Love  in  Early  Re- 
ligion, 21 — Murder  as  a  Virtue,  28 — Slaughter  of  the  Inno- 
cents, 30— Honorable  Polygamy,  34— Curiosities  of  Modesty, 
37— Indifference  to  Chastity,  41— Horror  of  Incest,  46. 

WHAT  IS  ROMANTIC  LOVE  ? Pages  52-291 

Ingredients  of  Love,  53. 

I.  INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE Pages  54-70 

All  Girls  Equally  Attractive,  54— Shallow  Predilection,  56— 
Repression  of  Preference,  56 — Utility  versus  Sentiment,  57— 
A  Story  of  African  Love,  58— Similarity  of  Individuals  and 
Sexes,  59 — Primary  and  Secondary  Sexual  Characters,  61  — 
Fastidious  Sensuality  is  not  Love,  61 — Two  Stories  of  In- 
dian Love,  62— Feminine  Ideals  Superior  to  Masculine,  63 — 
Sex  in  Body  and  Mind,  64— True  Femininity  and  its  Female 
Enemies,  65 — Mysteries  of  Love,  67 — An  Oriental  Love-Story, 
69. 

II.  MONOPOLISM Pages  71-82 

Juliet  and  Nothing  but  Juliet,  71— Butterfly  Love,  72— Ro- 
mantic Stories  of  Non-Romantic  Love,  74 — Obstacles  to  Mo- 
nopolism, 76 — Wives  and  Girls  in  Common,  77 — Trial  Mar- 
riages, 79 — Two  Roman  Lovers,  80. 


xii  CONTENTS 

III.  JEALOUSY -> Pages  82-108 

Rage  at  Rivals,  83— Women  as  Private  Property,  83— Horrible 
Punishments,  84— Essence  of  True  Jealousy,  85— Absence  of 
Masculine  Jealousy,  87— Persian  and  Greek  Jealousy,  93— 
Primitive  Feminine  Jealousy,  97— Absence  of  Feminine  Jeal- 
ousy, 98 — Jealousy  Purged  of  Hate,  104 — A  Virtuous  Sin, 
105— Abnormal  States,  106— Jealousy  in  Romantic  Love, 
108. 

IV.  COYNESS Pages  109-133 

Women  Who  Woo,  109— Were  Hebrew  and  Greek  Women 
Coy?  114;  Masculine  Coyness,  116— Shy  but  not  Coy,  117— 
Militarism  and  Medieval  Women,  117 — What  Made  Women 
Coy?  119 — Capturing  Women,  121 — The  Comedy  of  Mock 
Capture,  123— Why  the  Women  Resist,  125— Quaint  Cus- 
toms, 127 — Greek  and  Roman  Mercenary  Coyness,  129 — Mod- 
esty and  Coyness,  130 — Utility  of  Coyness,  131 — How  Women 
Propose,  132. 

V.  HOPE  AND  DESPAIR— MIXED  MOODS Pages  133-137 

Amorous  Antitheses,  133 — Courtship  and  Imagination,  135 — 
Effects  of  Sensual  Love,  136. 

VI.  HYPERBOLE Pages  137-147 

Girls  and  Flowers,  138 — Eyes  and  Stars,  139 — Locks  and  Fra- 
grance, 140 — Poetic  Desire  for  Contact,  141 — Nature's  Sym- 
pathy with  Lovers,  143 — Romantic  but  not  Loving,  144 — 
The  Power  of  Love,  146. 

VII.  PRIDE Pages  148-153 

Comic  Side  of  Love,  148 — A  Mystery  Explained,  148 — Impor- 
tance of  Pride,  149 — Varieties  and  Germs,  150 — Natural  and 
Artificial  Symptoms  of  Love,  152. 

VIII.  SYMPATHY Pages  153-167 

Egotism,  Naked  or  Masked,  154 — Delight  in  the  Torture  of 
Others,  155 — Indifference  to  Suffering,  158 — Exposing  the  Sick 
and  Aged,  159— Birth  of  Sympathy,  160— Women  Ccueler 
than  Men,  161 — Plato  Denounces  Sympathy,  162— Sham  Al- 
truism in  India,  164— Evolution  of  Sympathy,  165— Amorous 
Sympathy,  166. 

IX.  ADORATION Pages  167-180 

Deification  of  Persons,  167 — Primitive  Contempt  for  Women, 
169 — Homage  to  Priestesses,  173— Kinship  Through  Females 
Only,  174— Woman's  Domestic  Rule,  176— Woman's  Politi- 
cal Rule,  177— Greek  Estimate  of  Women,  178— Man- Wor- 
ship and  Christianity,  179. 


CONTENTS  xiii 

X.  UNSELFISH  GALLANTRY , Pages  180-195 

The  Gallant  Rooster,  181— Ungallant  Lower  Races  of  Men, 
181— Egyptian  Love,  185— Arabian  Love,  186— The  Unchiv- 
alrous  Greeks,  188— Ovid's  Sham  Gallantry,  189— Medieval 
and  Modern  Gallantry,  190— "  An  Insult  to  Woman,"  192— 
Summary,  193— A  Sure  Test  of  Love,  194. 

XI.  ALTRUISTIC  SELF-SACRIFICE Pages  195-206 

The  Lady  and  the  Tiger,  196— A  Greek  Love-Story,  197— Per- 
sian Love,  199— Hero  and  Leander,  202— The  Elephant  and 
the  Lotos,  202— Suicide  is  Selfish,  204. 

XII.  AFFECTION Pages  206-218 

Erotic  Assassins.  207— The  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  209— Stuff 
and  Nonsense,  210— Sacrifices  of  Cannibal  Husbands,  211— 
Inclinations  Mistaken  for  Affection,  212— Selfish  Liking  and 
Attachment,  213— Foolish  Fondness,  214— Unselfish  Affec- 
tion, 216. 

XIII.  MENTAL  PURITY Pages  218-229 

German  Testimony,  219— English  Testimony,  220— Maiden 
Fancies,  222— Pathologic  Love,  223— A  Modern  Sentiment, 
224— Persians,  Turks,  and  Hindoos,  225—  Love  Despised  in 
Japan  and  China,  227 — Greek  Scorn  for  Woman-Love,  228 — 
Penetrative  Virginity,  228. 

XIV.  ADMIRATION  OF  PERSONAL  BEAUTY  . .  .Pages  229-287 

Darwin's  Unfortunate  Mistake,  230 — Decoration  for  Protec- 
tion,233— War  "Decorations,"  233— Amulets,  Charms,  Medi- 
cines, 236— Mourning  Language,  239 — Indications  of  Tribe  or 
Rank,  241— Vain  Desire  to  Attract  Attention,  245— Objects  of 
Tattooing,  247— Tattooing  on  Pacific  Islands,  248— Tattooing 
in  America,  251 — Tattooing  in  Japan,  253— Scarification,  254 
— Alleged  Testimony  of  Natives,  255— Misleading  Testimony 
of  Visitors,  257— "Decoration  "  at  the  Age  of  Puberty,  261— 
"Decoration  "  as  a  Test  of  Courage,  264— Mutilation,  Fash- 
ion, and  Emulation,  265 — Personal  Beauty  versus  Personal 
Decoration,  269 — De  Gustibus  mm  est  Disputanduui?  272 — 
Indifference  to  Dirt,  274 — Reasons  for  Bathing,  276 — Corpu- 
lence versus  Beauty,  277 — Fattening  Girls  for  the  Marriage 
Market,  278— Oriental  Ideals,  280— The  Concupiscence  The- 
ory of  Beauty,  281— Utility  is  not  Beauty,  283— A  New  Sense 
Easily  Lost  Again,  284— Moral  Ugliness,  285— Beautifying 
Intelligence,  285— The  Strange  Greek  Attitude,  286. 

A  COMPOSITE  AND  VARIABLE  SENTIMENT.  .. Pages  287-291 
^Jos  R~omance,°ye»  287— Why  called  Romantic,  289. 


xiv  CONTENTS 


SENSUALITY,  SENTIMENTALITY,  AND  SENTIMENT. 

Pages  292-303 

Appetite  and  Longing,  292— Wiles  of  an  Oriental  Girl,  298 — 
Rarity  of  True  Love,  301. 


MISTAKES  REGARDING  CONJUGAL  LOVE  ..  Pages  304-326 

How  Romantic  Love  is  Metamorphosed,  304 — Why  Savages 
Value  Wives,  307 — Mourning  to  Order,  311 — Mourning  for 
Entertainment,  315 — The  Truth  about  Widow-Burning,  317 
—Feminine  Devotion  in  Ancient  Literature,  320 — Wives  Es- 
teemed as  Mothers  Only,  321— Why  Conjugal  Precedes  Ro- 
mantic Love,  322. 


OBSTACLES  TO  ROMANTIC  LOVE Pages  327-353 

I.  Ignorance  and  Stupidity,  327 — II.  Coarseness  and  Ob- 
scenity, 329— III.  AVar,  330— IV.  Cruelty,  331— V.  Masculine 
Selfishness,  331— VI.  Contempt  for  Women,  332— VII.  Capture 
and  Sale  of  Brides,  332— VIII.  Infant  Marriages, 334  —IX.  Pre- 
vention of  Free  Choice,  335 — X.  Separation  of  the  Sexes,  34G — 
XI.  Sexual  Taboos,  347— XII.  Race  Aversions,  349— XIII.  Mul- 
tiplicity of  Languages,  350 — XIV.  Social  Barriers,  351 — XV. 
Religious  Prejudice,  353. 


SPECIMENS  OF  AFRICAN  LOVE Pages  354-415 

Bushman  Qualifications  for  Love,  354— "Love  in  all  Their 
Marriages,"  357— False  Facts  Regarding  Hottentots,  362— Ef- 
feminate Men  and  Masculine  Women,  364 — How  the  Hottentot 
Woman  "Rules  at  Home,"  365— "  Regard  for  Women,"  366— 
Capacity  for  Reiined  Love,  367— Hottentot  Coarseness,  368— Fat 
versus  Sentiment,  369— South  African  Love-Poems,  370— A  Hot- 
tentot Flirt,  371— Kaffir  Morals,  371— Individual  Preference  for 
— Cows,  376— Bargaining  for  Brides,  377 — Amorous  Prefer- 
ences, 379— Zulu  Girls  not  Coy,  380  —Charms  and  Poems,  381— 
A  Kaffir  Love-Story,  382— Lower  than  Beasts,  384— Colonies  of 
Free  Lovers,  386— A  Lesson  in  Gallantry,  387— Not  a  Particle 
of  Romance,  888— No  Love  Among  Negroes,  389— A  Queer  Story, 
390  ;  Suicides,  392— Poetic  Love  on  the  Congo,  392— Black  Love 
in  Kamerun,  394— A  Slave  Coast  Love-Story,  396— The  Maiden 
who  Always  Refused,  397— African  Story-Books,  398— The  Five 
Suitors,  399— Tamba  and  the  Princess,  399— The  Sewing  Match, 
400— Baling  out  the  Brook,  401— Pro  verbs  about  Women,  401— 
African  Amazons,  402— Where  Woman  Commands,  403— No 
Chance  for  Romantic  Love,  404 — Pastoral  Love,  405 — Abyssin- 
ian Beauty  and  Flirtation,  408— Galla  Coarseness,  408— Somali 
Love-Affairs,  409— Arabic  Influences,  412— Touaree:  Chivalry, 
413— An  African  Love-Letter,  414. 


CONTENTS  xv 


ABORIGINAL  AUSTRALIAN  LOVE Pages  416-475 

Personal  Charms  of  Australians,  416 — Cruel  Treatment  of 
Women,  419— Were  Savages  Corrupted  by  Whites?  422— Abo- 
riginal Horrors,  423 — Naked  and  not  Ashamed,  425— Is  Civili- 
zation Demoralizing?  427— Aboriginal  Wantonness,  428 — Lower 
than  Brutes,  430 — Indifference  to  Chastity,  431— Useless  Pre- 
cautions, 433 — Survivals  of  Promiscuity,  435 — Aboriginal  De- 
pravity, 437 — The  Question  of  Promiscuity,  438 — Why  do  Aus- 
tralians Marry?  441 — Curiosities  of  Jealousy,  443 — Pugnacious 
Females,  446— Wife-Stealing,  448— Swapping  Girls,  450— The 
Philosophy  of  Elopements,  452 — Charming  a  Woman  by  Magic, 
456 — Other  Obstacles  to  Love,  458 — Marriage  Taboos  and  "  In- 
cest," 459 — Affection  for  Women  and  Dogs,  461 — A  Horrible 
Custom,  464— Romantic  Affliction,  465— A  Lock  of  Hair,  466— 
Two  Native  Stories,  467 — Barrington's  Love-Story,  469 — Risk- 
ing Life  for  a  Woman,  471 — Gerstaecker's  Love-Story, 472 — Lo- 
cal Color  in  Courtship,  473— Love-Letters,  474. 

ISLAND  LOVE  ON  THE  PACIFIC Pages  476-54^ 

Where  Women  Propose,  476— Bornean  Caged  Girls,  480 — 
Charms  of  Dyak  Women,  481 — Dyak  Morals,  482 — Nocturnal 
Courtship,  483— Head  Hunters  A- Wooing,  484— Fickle  and 
Shallow  Passion,  486— Dyak  Love-Songs,  487— The  Girl  With 
the  Clean  Face,  488— Fijian  Refinements,  489 — How  Cannibals 
Treat  Women,  490— Fijian  Modesty  and  Chastity,  492— Emo- 
tional Curiosities,  493 — Fijian  Love-Poems,  494— Serenades  and 
Proposals,  496 — Suicides  and  Bachelors,  497 — Sauioan  Traits, 
498 — Courtship  Pantomime,  500 — Two  Sarnoan  Love-Stories, 
501 — Personal  Charms  of  South  Sea  Islanders,  503 — Tahitians 
and  Their  White  Visitors,  504 — Heartless  Treatment  of  Women, 
506— Two  Stories  of  Tahitian  Infatuation,  508— Captain  Cook 
on  Tah itian  Love,  509— Were  the  Tonga ns  Civilized  ?  510— Love 
of  Scenery,  512 — A  Cannibal  Bargain,  513 — The  Handsome 
Chiefs,  514 — Honeymoon  in  ^a  Cave,  515— A  Hawaiian  Cave- 
Story,  516 — Is  this  Romantic  Love?  520 — Vagaries  of  Hawaiian 
Fondness,  521 — Hawaiian  Morals,  522 — The  Helen  of  Hawaii, 
524 — Intercepted  Love-Letters,  525 — Maoris  of  New  Zealand, 
528— The  Maiden  of  Rotorua,  529— The  Man  on  the  Tree,  531— 
Love  in  a  Fortress,  532— Stratagem  of  an  Elopement,  533 — Maori 
Love-Poems,  536— The  Wooing-House,  539— Liberty  of  Choice 
and  Respect  for  Women,  540 — Maori  Morals  and  Capacity  for 
Love,  542. 

HOW  AMERICAN  INDIANS  LOVE Pages  545-639 

The  Red  Lover,  546— The  Foam  Woman,  547— The  Hump- 
back Magician,  548— The  Buffalo  King,  549— The  Haunted 
Grove,  550 — The  Girl  and  the  Scalp,  551 — A  Chippewa  Love- 
Song,  552 — How  "Indian  Stories"  are  Written,  552 — Reality 
versus  Romance,  555 — Deceptive  Modesty,  557 — Were  Indians 


xvi  CONTENTS 

Corrupted  by  Whites?  559— The  Noble  Red  Man,  562— Appar- 
ent Exceptions,  566 — Intimidating  California  Squaws,  568 — 
Going  A-Calumeting,  569— Squaws  and  Personal  Beauty,  571 — 
Are  North  American  Indians  Gallant  ?  572 — South  American 
Gallantry,  586 — How  Indians  Adore  Squaws,  589 — Choosing  a 
Husband,  591 — Compulsory  "Free  Choice,"  593 — A  British 
Columbia  Story,  594 — The  Danger  of  Coquetry,  595 — The  Girl 
Market,  596— Other  Ways  of  Thwarting  Free  Choice,  598— Cen- 
tral and  South  American  Examples,  600 — Why  Indians  Elope, 
602 — Suicide  and  Love,  605 — Love-Charms,  610 — Curiosities  of 
Courtship,  612— Pantomimic  Love-Making,  616 — Honeymoon, 
617 — Music  in  Indian  Courtship,  617 — Indian  Love-Poems,  619; 
More  Love-Stories,  627—"  White  Man  Too  Much  Lie,"  630— 
The  Story  of  Pocahontas,  632 — Verdict:  No  Romantic  Love, 
633— The  Unloving  Eskimo,  637. 

INDIA— WILD  TRIBES  AND  TEMPLE  GIRLS. Pages 640-706 

"  Whole  Tracts  of  Feeling  Unknown  to  Them, "  640— Practi- 
cal Promiscuity,  641 — "  Marvellously  Pretty  and  Romantic," 
643— Liberty  of  Choice,  645— Scalps  and  Field-Mice,  647— A 
Topsy  -  Turvy  Custom,  648 — Pahuria  Lads  and  Lasses,  649 — 
Child-Murder  and  Child-Marriage,  650 — Monstrous  Parental 
Selfishness,  651— How  Hindoo  Girls  are  Disposed  of,  653— Hin- 
doos Far  Below  Brutes,  655 — Contempt  in  Place  of  Love,  657 — 
Widows  and  Their  Tormentors,  659— Hindoo  Depravity,  662— 
Temple  Girls,  664— An  Indian  Aspasia,  665 — Symptoms  of  Fem- 
inine Love,  668 — Symptoms  of  Masculine  Love,  673 — Lyrics 
and  Dramas,  676—1.  The  Story  of  Sakuntala,  677—11.  The 
Story  of  Urvasi,  680— III.  Malavika  and  Agnimitra,  685— IV. 
The  Story  of  Savitri,  688— V.  Nala  and  Damayanti,  690— Arti- 
ficial Symptoms,  694— The  Hindoo  God  of  Love,  696— Dying  for 
Love,  698— What  Hindoo  Poets  Admire  in  Women,  699— The 
Old  Story  of  Selfishness,  701 — Bayaderes  and  Princesses  as  Hero- 
ines, 703— Voluntary  Unions  not  Respectable,  704. 

DOES  THE  BIBLE  IGNORE  ROMANTIC  LOVE  ? 

Pages  707-731 

The  Story  of  Jacob  and  Rachel,  709— The  Courting  of  Re- 
bekah,  714 — How  Ruth  Courted  Boaz,  715 — No  Sympathy  or 
Sentiment,  718 — A  Masculine  Ideal  of  Womanhood,  719 — Not 
the  Christian  Ideal  of  Love,  720— Unchivalrous  Slaughter  of 
Women,  722— Four  More  Bible  Stories,  723— Abishag  the  Shu- 
nammite,  723— The  Song  of  Songs,  724. 

GREEK  LOVE-STORIES  AND  POEMS Pages  732-815 

Champions  of  Greek  Love,  732 — Gladstone  on  the  Women  of 
Homer,  734 — Achilles  as  a  Lover,  736 — Odysseus,  Libertine  and 
Ruffian,  740— Was  Penelope  a  Model  Wife?  743— Hector  and 
Andromache,  745 — Barbarous  Treatment  of  Greek  Women,  747 


CONTENTS  xvii 

—Love  in  Sappho's  Poems,  750— Masculine  Minds  in  Female 
Bodies,  754 — Anacreon  ai?d  Others,  756 — Woman  arid  Love  in 
^Eschylus,  757 — Woman  and  Love  in  Sophocles,  760 — Woman 
and  Love  in  Euripides,  765 — Romantic  Love,  Greek  Style,  771 — 
Platonic  Love  of  Women,  774 — Spartan  Opportunities  for  Love, 
776 — Amazonian  Ideal  of  Greek  Womanhood,  778 — Athenian 
Orientalism,  781 — Literature  and  Life,  782 — Greek  Love  in 
Africa,  785 — Alexandrian  Chivalry,  789 — The  New  Comedy, 
792 — Theocritus  and  Callimachus,  793 — Medea  and  Jason,  796 — 
Poets  and  Hetairai,799 — Short  Stories,  803 — Greek  Romances, 
806— Daphnis  and  Chloe,  809— Hero  and  Leander,  811— Cupid 
and  Psyche,  813. 

UTILITY  AND  FUTURE  OF  LOVE Pages  816-825 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  AND  INDEX  OF  AUTHORS... Pages  827-841 
INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS Pages  843-851 


PRIMITIVE   LOVE 

AND 

STORIES 


HISTOKY  OF  AN  IDEA 

44  Love  is  always  the  same.  As  Sappho  loved,  fifty  years  ago,  so  did 
people  love  ages  before  her;  so  will  they  love  thousands  of  years  hence." 

THESE  words,  placed  by  Professor  Ebers  in  the  mouth  of 
one  of  the  characters  in  his  historic  novel,  An  Egyptian 
l*r ui cess,  express  the  prevalent  opinion  on  this  subject,  an 
opinion  which  I,  too,  shared  fifteen  years  ago.  Though  an 
ardent  champion  of  the  theory  of  evolution,  I  believed  that 
there  was  one  thing  in  the  world  to  which  modern  scientific 
ideas  of  gradual  development  did  not  apply — that  love  was 
too  much  part  and  parcel  of  human  nature  to  have  ever  been 
different  from  what  it  is  to-day. 

ORIGIK   OF  A   BOOK 

It  so  happened  that  I  began  to  collect  notes  for  a  paper  on 
"  How  to  Cure  Love."  It  was  at  first  intended  merely  as  a 
personal  experiment  in  emotional  psychology.  Afterward  it 
occurred  to  me  that  such  a  sketch  might  be  shaped  into  a 
readable  magazine  article.  This,  again,  suggested  a  comple- 
mentary article  on  "How  to  Win  Love" — a  sort  of  modern 
Ovid  in  prose  ;  and  then  suddenly  came  the  thought,  "Why 
not  write  a  book  on  love  ?  There  is  none  in  the  English  lan- 
guage— strange  anomaly — though  love  is  supposed  to  be  the 
most  fascinating  and  influential  thing  in  the  world.  It  will 

1 


2  HISTORY   OF   AN   IDEA 

surely  be  received  with  delight,  especially  if  I  associate  with  it 
some  chapters  on  personal  beauty,  the  chief  inspirer  of  love. 
I  shall  begin  by  showing  that  the  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans 
and  Hebrews  loved  precisely  as  we  love."  Forthwith  I  took 
down  from  my  shelves  the  classical  authors  that  I  had  not 
touched  since  leaving  college,  and  eagerly  searched  for  all  ref- 
erences to  women,  marriage,  and  love.  To  my  growing  sur- 
prise and  amazement  I  found  that  not  only  did  those  ancient 
authors  look  upon  women  as  inferior  beings  while  I  worshipped 
them,  but  in  their  descriptions  of  the  symptoms  of  love  I  looked 
in  vain  for  mention  of  those  supersensual  emotions  and  self- 
sacrificing  impulses  which  overcame  me  when  I  was  in  love. 
"  Can  it  be,"  I  whispered  to  myself,  "  that,  notwithstanding 
the  universal  opinion  to  the  contrary,  love  is,  after  all,  subject 
to  the  laws  of  development  ?  " 

This  hypothesis  threw  me  into  a  fever  of  excitement,  with- 
out the  stimulus  of  which  I  do  not  believe  I  should  have 
had  the  courage  and  patience  to  collect,  classify,  and  weave 
into  one  fabric  the  enormous  number  of  facts  and  opinions 
contained  within  the  covers  of  Romantic  Love  and  Personal 
Beauty.  I  believed  that  at  last  something  new  under  the  sun 
had  been  found,  and  I  was  so  much  afraid  that  the  discovery 
might  leak  out  prematurely,  that  for  two  years  I  kept  the 
first  half  of  my  title  a  secret,  telling  inquisitive  friends  merely 
that  I  was  writing  a  book  on  Personal  Beauty.  And  no  one 
but  an  author  who  is  in  love  with  his  theme  and  whose  theme 
is  love  can  quite  realize  what  a  supreme  delight  it  was — with 
occasional  moments  of  anxious  suspense — to  go  through  thou- 
sands of  books  in  the  libraries  of  America,  England,  France,  and 
Germany  and  find  that  all  discoverable  facts,  properly  inter- 
preted, bore  out  my  seemingly  paradoxical  and  reckless  theory. 

SKEPTICAL    CRITICS 

When  the  book  appeared  some  of  the  critics  accepted  my 
conclusions,  but  a  larger  number  pooh-poohed  them.  Here 
are  a  few  specimen  comments  : 

' '  His  great  theses  are,  first,  that  romantic  love  is  an  en- 
tirely modern  invention ;  and,  secondly,  that  romantic  love 


ROBERT   BURTON  3 

and  conjugal  love  are  two  things  essentially  different.  .  .  . 
Now  both  these  theses  are  luckily  false." 

"  He  is  wrong  when  he  says  there  was  no  such  thing  as  pre- 
matrimonial  love  known  to  the  ancients." 

"  I  don't  believe  in  his  theory  at  all,  and  .  .  .  no  one 
is  likely  to  believe  in  it  after  candid  examination." 

"  A  ridiculous  theory." 

"  It  was  a  misfortune  when  Mr.  Finck  ran  afoul  of  this 
theory." 

"  Mr.  Finck  will  not  need  to  live  many  years  in  order  to  be 
ashamed  of  it." 

"  His  thesis  is  not  worth  writing  about." 

"  It  is  true  that  he  has  uttered  a  profoundly  original 
thought,  but,  unfortunately,  the  depth  of  its  originality  is 
surpassed  by  its  fathomless  stupidity." 

"  If  in  the  light  of  these  and  a  million  other  facts,  we 
should  undertake  to  explain  why  nobody  had  anticipated  Mr. 
Finck's  theory  that  love  is  a  modern  sentiment,  we  should 
say  it  might  be  because  nobody  who  felt  inspired  to  write 
about  it  was  ever  so  extensively  unacquainted  with  the  litera- 
ture of  the  human  passions." 

"  Romantic  love  has  always  existed,  in  every  clime  and  age, 
since  man  left  simian  society ;  and  the  records  of  travellers 
show  that  it  is  to  be  found  even  among  the  lowest  savages." 


ROBEKT   BURTON 

"While  not  a  few  of  the  commentators  thus  rejected  or 
ridiculed  my  thesis,  others  hinted  that  I  had  been  anticipated. 
Several  suggested  that  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  had 
been  my  model.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  although  one  of  the  crit- 
ics referred  to  my  book  as  "  a  marvel  of  epitomized  research," 
I  must  confess,  to  my  shame,  that  I  was  not  aware  that  Bur- 
ton had  devoted  two  hundred  pages  to  what  he  calls  Love- 
Melancholy,  until  I  had  finished  the  first  sketch  of  my  man- 
uscript and  commenced  to  rewrite  it.  My  experience  thus 
furnished  a  striking  verification  of  the  witty  epitaph  which 
Burton  wrote  for  himself  and  his  book:  " Known  to  few,  v 
unknown  to  fewer  still."  However,  after  reading  Burton, 
I  was  surprised  that  any  reader  of  Burton  should  have  found 
anything  in  common  between  his  book  and  mine,  for  he  treated 
love  as  an  appetite,  I  as  a  sentiment ;  my  subject  was  pure, 


4  HISTORY   OF   AN   IDEA 

supersensual  affection,  while  his  subject  is  frankly  indicated 
in  the  following  sentences : 

"  I  come  at  last  to  that  heroical  love,  which  is  proper  to 
men  and  women  .  .  .  and  deserves  much  rather  to  be 
called  burning  lust  than  by  such  an  honorable  title."  "  This 
burning  lust  .  .  .  begets  rapes,  incests,  murders/"  "It 
rages  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  yet  is  most  evident 
among  such  as  are  young  and  lusty,  in  the  flower  of  their 
years,  nobly  descended,  high  fed,  such  as  live  idly,  at  ease, 
and  for  that  cause  (which  our  divines  call  burning  lust)  this 
mad  and  beastly  passion  ...  is  named  by  our  physicians 
heroical  love,  and  a  more  honorable  title  put  upon  it,  Amor 
nobilis,  as  Savonarola  styles  it,  because  noble  men  and  women 
make  a  common  practice  of  it,  and  are  so  ordinarily  affected 
with  it."  "  Carolus  a  Lorme  .  .  .  makes  a  doubt  whether 
this  heroical  love  be  a  disease.  .  .  .  Tully  .  .  .  de- 
fines it  a  furious  disease  of  the  mind  ;  Plato  madness  itself." 
"Gordonius  calls  this  disease  the  proper  passion  of  nobility." 
"This  heroical  passion  or  rather  brutish  burning  lust  of 
which  we  treat." 

.  /  The  only  honorable  love  Burton  knows  is  that  between 
husband  and  wife,  while  of  such  a  thing  as  the  evolution  of 
love  he  had,  of  course,  not  the  remotest  conception,  as  his 
book  appeared  in  1621,  or  two  hundred  and  thirty-eight  years 
before  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species. 

HEGEL   OK   GREEK   LOVE 

In  a  review  of  my  book  which  appeared  in  the  now  defunct 
New  York  Star,  the  late  George  Parsons  Lathrop  wrote  that 
the  author  "says  that  romantic  love  is  a  modern  sentiment, 
less  than  a  thousand  years  old.  This  idea,  I  rather  think,  he 
derived  from  Hegel,  although  he  does  not  credit  that  philoso- 
pher with  it."  I  read  this  criticism  with  mingled  emotions. 
If  it  was  true  that  Hegel  had  anticipated  me,  my  claims  to 
priority  of  discovery  would  vanish,  even  though  the  idea  had 
come  to  me  spontaneously  ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  dis- 
appointment at  this  thought  was  neutralized  by  the  reflection 
that  I  should  gain  the  support  of  one  of  the  most  famous  phi- 
losophers, and  share  with  him  the  sneers  and  the  ridicule  be- 
stowed upon  my  theory.  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Lathrop,  begging 


HEGEL   ON   GREEK   LOVE  5 

him  to  refer  me  to  the  volume  and  page  of  Hegel's  numer- 
ous works  where  I  could  find  the  passage  in  question.  He 
promptly  replied  that  I  should  find  it  in  the  second  volume  of 
the  Aesthet.ik  (178-182).  No  douht  I  ought  to  have  known 
that  Hegel  had  written  on  this  subject ;  but  the  fact  that  of 
more  than  two  hundred  American,  English,  and  German  re- 
viewers of  my  book  whose  notices  I  have  seen,  only  one  knew 
what  had  thus  escaped  my  research,  consoled  me  somewhat. 
Hegel,  indeed,  might  well  have  copied  Burton's  epitaph. 
His  Aesthetik  is  an  abstruse,  unindexed,  three-volume  work 
of  1,575  pages,  which  has  not  been  reprinted  since  1843, 
and  is  practically  forgotten.  Few  know  it,  though  all  know 
of  it. 

After  perusing  Hegel's  pages  on  this  topic  I  found,  how- 
ever, that  Mr.  Lathrop  had  imputed  to  him  a  theory — my  the- 
ory— which  that  philosopher  would  have  doubtless  repudiated 
emphatically.  What  Hegel  does  is  simply  to  call  attention  * 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  literature  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans  love  is  depicted  only  as  a  transient  gratification  of 
the  senses,  or  a  consuming  heat  of  the  blood,  and  not  as  a  ro- 
mantic, sentimental  affection  of  the  soul.  He  does  not  gen- 
eralize, says  nothing  about  other  ancient  nations,1  and  cer- 
tainly never  dreamt  of  such  a  thing  as  asserting  that  love  had 
been  gradually  and  slowly  developed  from  the  coarse  and  self- 
ish passions  of  our  savage  ancestors  to  the  refined  and  altru- 
istic feelings  of  modern  civilized  men  and  women.  He  lived 
long  before  the  days  of  scientific  anthropology  and  Darwin- 
ism, and  never  thought  of  such  a  thing  as  looking  upon  the 
emotions  and  morals  of  primitive  men  as  the  raw  material 
out  of  which  our  own  superior  minds  have  been  fashioned. 
Nay,  Hegel  does  not  even  say  that  sentimental  love  did  not  ^ 
exist  in  the  life  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ;  he  simply  as- 
serts that  it  is  not  to  be  found  in  their  literature.  The  two 
things  are  by  no  means  identical. 

Professor  Rohde,  an  authority  on  the  erotic  writings  of  the 

1  Albrecht  Weber  and  other  German  scholars,  while  practically  agreeing  with 
Hegel  regarding  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  claim  that  the  amorous  poetry  of  the 
ancient  Hindoo  has  the  sentimental  qualities  of  modern  European  verse. 


6  HISTORY    OF   AN    IDEA 

Greeks,  expresses  the  opinion  repeatedly  that,  whatever  their 
literature  may  indicate,  they  themselves  were  capable  of 
feeling  strong  and  pure  love ;  and  the  eminent  American 
psychologist,  Professor  William  James,  put  forth  the  same 
opinion  in  a  review  of  my  book.1  Indeed,  this  view  was 
broached  -more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  by  a  German  author, 
Basil  von  Ramdohr,  who  wrote  four  volumes  on  love  and  its 
history,  entitled  Venus  Urania.  His  first  two  volumes  are 
almost  unreadably  garrulous  and  dull,  but  the  third  and 
fourth  contain  an  interesting  account  of  various  phases 
through  which  love  has  passed  in  literature.  Yet  he  declares 
(Preface,  vol.  iii.)  that  "  the  nature  [Wesen]  of  love  is  un- 
changeable, but  the  ideas  we  entertain  in  regard  to  it  and  the 
effects  we  ascribe  to  it,  are  subject  to  alteration. " 

SHELLEY   ON   GREEK   LOVE 

It  is  possible  that  Hegel  may  have  read  this  book,  for  it 
appeared  in  1798,,  while  the  first  manuscript  sketches  of  his 
lectures  on  esthetics  bear  the  date  of  1818.  He  may  have 
also  read  Robert  Wood's  book  entitled  An  Essay  on  the  Orig- 
inal Genius  and  Writings  of  Homer,  dated  1775,  in  which 
this  sentence  occurs  :  "  Is  it  not  very  remarkable,  that  Ho- 
mer, so  great  a  master  of  the  tender  and  pathetic,  who  has 
exhibited  human  nature  in  almost  every  shape,  and  under 
every  view,  has  not  given  a  single  instance  of  the  powers  and 
effects  of  love,  distinct  from  sensual  enjoyment,  in  the  Iliad?  " 
This  is  as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  trace  back  this  notion  in 
modern  literature.  But  in  the  literature  of  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  I  have  come  across  several  adumbra- 
tions of  the  truth  regarding  the  Greeks,2  by  Shelley,  Lord 
Lytton,  Lord  Macaulay,  and  Theophile  Gautier.  Shelley's 
ideas  are  confused  and  contradictory,  but  interesting  as  show- 

1  In  the  New  York  Nation  of  September  22,  and  the  Evening  Post  of  Sep- 
tember 24,  1887.      My  reasons  for  not  agreeing  with  these  two  distinguished 
professors  will  be  dwelt  on  repeatedly  in  the  following  pages.    If  they  are  right, 
then  literature  is  not,  as  it  is  universally  held  to  be,  a  mirror  of  life. 

2  No  important  truth  is  ever  born  full-fledged.     The  Darwinian  theory  was 
conceived  simultaneously  by  Wallace  and  Darwin,  and  both  were  anticipated  by 
other  writers.     Nay,  a  German  professor  has  written  a  treatise  on  the  "Greek 
Predecessors  of  Darwin. " 


SHELLEY   ON   GREEK   LOVE  x         7 

ing  the  conflict  between  traditional  opinion  and  poetic  intui- 
tion. In  his  fragmentary  discourse  on  "  The  Manners  of  the 
Ancients  Relating  to  the  Subject  of  Love, "which was  intended 
to  serve  as  an  introduction  to  Plato's  Symposium,  he  re- 
marks that  the  women  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, possessed  "  the  habits  and  the  qualities  of  slaves.  They 
were  probably  not  extremely  beautiful,  at  least  there  was  no 
such  disproportion  in  the  attractions  of  the  external  form  be- 
tween the  female  and  male  sex  among  the  Greeks,  as  exists 
among  the  modem  Europeans.  They  were  certainly  devoid 
of  that  moral  and  intellectual  loveliness  with  which  the  ac- 
quisition of  knowledge  and  the  cultivation  of  sentiment  ani- 
mates, as  with  another  life  of  overpowering  grace,  the  linea- 
ments and  the  gestures  of  every  form  which  they  inhabit. 
Their  eyes  could  not  have  been  deep  and  intricate  from  the 
workings  of  the  mind,  and  could  have  entangled  no  heart  in 
soul-enwoven  labyrinths/'  Having  painted  this  life-like  pict- 
ure of  the  Greek  female  mind,  Shelley  goes  on  to  say  per- 
versely :  "Let  it  not  be  imagined  that  because  the  Greeks 
were  deprived  of  its  legitimate  object,  that  they  were  incapable 
of  sentimental  love,  and  that  this  passion  is  the  mere  child  of 
chivalry  and  the  literature  of  modern  times." 

He  tries  to  justify  this  assertion  by  adding  that  "Man  is 
in  his  wildest  state  a  social  being  :  a  certain  degree  of  civili- 
zation and  refinement  ever  produces  the  want  of  sympathies 
still  more ,  intimate  and  complete;  and  the  gratification  of 
the  senses  is  no  longer  all  that  is  sought  in  sexual  connection. 
It  soon  becomes  a  very  small  part  of  that  profound  and  com- 
plicated sentiment,  which  we  call  love,  which  is  rather  the 
universal  thirst  for  a  communion  not  merely  of  the  senses, 
but  of  our  whole  nature,  intellectual,  imaginative,  and  sensi- 
tive." 

Here  Shelley  contradicts  himself  flatly  by  saying,  in  two 
consecutive  sentences,  that  Greek  women  were  "  certainly  de- 
void of  the  moral  and  intellectual  loveliness  "  which  inspires 
sentimental  love,  but  that  the  men  nevertheless  could  feel  such 
love.  His  mind  was  evidently  hazy  on  the  subject,  and  that 
is  probably  the  reason  why  his  essay,  remained  a  fragment. 


8  HISTORY   OF   AN    IDEA 

MACAULAY,    BULWER-LYTTON,    GAUTIER 

Macaulay,  with  deeper  insight  than  Shelley  showed,  realized 
that  the  passion  of  love  may  undergo  changes.  In  his  essay 
on  Petrarch  he  notes  that  in  the  days  of  that  poet  love  had  be- 
come a  new  passion,  and  he  clearly  realizes  the  obstacles  to 
love  presented  by  Greek  institutions.  Of  the  two  classes  of 
women  in  Greece,  the  respectable  and  the  hetairai,  he  says  : 
"  The  matrons  and  their  daughters,  confined  in  the  harem — 
insipid,  uneducated,  ignorant  of  all  but  the  mechanical  arts, 
scarcely  seen  till  they  were  married — could  rarely  excite 
interest ;  while  their  brilliant  rivals,  half  graces,  half  harpies, 
elegant  and  refined,  but  fickle  and  rapacious,  could  never 
inspire  respect/" 

Lord  Lytton  wrote  an  essay  on  "  The  Influence  of  Love 
upon  Literature  and  Eeal  Life/7  in  which  he  stated  that 
"  with  Euripides  commences  the  important  distinction  in  the 
analysis  of  which  all  the  most  refined  and  intellectual  of  mod- 
ern erotic  literature  consists,  viz.,  the  distinction  between 
love  as  a  passion  and  love  as  a  sentiment.  .  .  .  He  is  the 
first  of  the  Hellenic  poets  who  interests  us  intellectually  in 
the  antagonism  and  affinity  between  the  sexes." 

Theophile  Gautier  clearly  realized  one  of  the  differences  be- 
tween ancient  passion  and  modern  love.  In  Mademoiselle  de 
Maupin,  he  makes  this  comment  on  the  ancient  love-poems  : 

•  "Through  all  the  subtleties  and  veiled  expressions  one 
hears  the  abrupt  and  harsh  voice  of  the  master  who  endeav- 
ors to  soften  his  manner  in  speaking  to  a  slave.  It  is  not,  as 
in  the  love-poems  written  since  the  Christian  era,  a  soul 
demanding  love  of  another  soul  because  it  loves.  .  .  . 
'  Make  haste,  Cynthia ;  the  smallest  wrinkle  may  prove  the 
grave  of  the  most  violent  passion/  It  is  in  this  brutal  for- 
mula that  all  ancient  elegy  is  summed  up." 

GOLDSMITH   AND   ROUSSEAU 

In  Romantic  Love  and  Personal  Beauty  I  intimated  (116) 
that  Oliver  Goldsmith  was  the  first  author  who  had  a  suspi- 
cion of  the  fact  that  love  is  not  the  same  everywhere  and  at 
all  times.  My  surmise  was  apparently  correct ;  it  is  not  re- 


LOVE   A    COMPO UND    FEELING  9 

futed  by  any  of  the  references  to  love  by  the  several  authors 
just  quoted,  since  all  of  these  were  written  from  about  a  half 
a  century  to  a  century  later  than  Goldsmith's  Citizen  of  the 
\Yor1d  (published  in  1704),  which  contains  his  dialogue  on 
"  Whether  Love  be  a  Natural  or  a  Fictitious  Passion."  His  as- 
sertion therein  that  love  existed  only  in  early  Rome,  in  chiv- 
alrous mediasval  Europe,  and  in  China,  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
being,  and  having  ever  been,  "utter  strangers  to  its  delights 
and  advantages,"  is,  of  course  a  mere  bubble  of  his  poetic 
fancy,  not  intended  to  be  taken  too  seriously,  and,  is,  more- 
over, at  variance  with  facts.  It  is  odd  that  he  overlooks  the 
Greeks,  whereas  the  other  writers  cited  confine  themselves 
to  the  Greeks  and  their  Roman  imitators. 

Ten  years  before  Goldsmith  thus  launched  the  idea  that 
most  nations  were  and  had  ever  been  strangers  to  the  delights 
and  advantages  of  love,  Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  published  a 
treatise,  Discours  sur  FinegalitS  (1754),  in  which  he  asserted 
that  savages  are  strangers  to  jealousy,  know  no  domes- 
ticity, and  evince  no  preferences,  being  as  well  pleased  with 
one  woman  as  with  another.  Although,  as  we  shall  see  later, 
many  savages  do  have  a  crude  sort  of  jealousy,  domesticity, 
and  individual  preference,  Rousseau,  nevertheless,  hints  pro- 
phetically at  a  great  truth — the  fact  that  some,  at  any  rate, 
of  the  phenomena  of  love  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  life  of 
savages.  Such  a  thought,  naturally,  was  too  novel  to  be  ac- 
cepted at  once.  Ramdohr,  for  instance,  declares  (III.  17) 
that  he  cannot  convince  himself  that  Rousseau  is  right.  Yet, 
on  the  preceding  page  he  himself  had  written  that  "  it  is  un- 
reasonable to  speak  of  love  between  the  sexes  among  peoples 
that  have  not  yet  advanced  so  far  as  to  grant  women  humane 
consideration." 

LOVE   A   COMPOUND   FEELING 

All  these  things  are  of  extreme  interest  as  showing  the 
blind  struggles  of  a  great  idea  to  emerge  from  the  mist  into 
daylight.  The  greatest  obstacle  to  the  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  love  has  a  history,  and  is  subject  to  the  laws  of  evo- 
lution, lay  in  the  habit  of  looking  upon  it  as  a  simple  feeling. 


10  HISTORY    OF   AN   IDEA 

When  I  wrote  my  first  book  on  love,  I  believed  that  Herbert 
Spencer  was  the  first  thinker  who  grasped  the  idea  that  love 
is  a  composite  state  of  mind.  I  now  see,  however,  that  Sil- 
vias, in  Shakspere's  As  You  Like  It  (V.  2),  gave  a  broad 
hint  of  the  truth,  three  hundred  years  ago.  Phoebe  asks  him 
to  "  tell  what 't  is  to  love,"  and  he  replies  : 

It  is  to  be  all  made  of  sighs  and  tears.     .     .     . 

It  is  to  be  all  made  of  faith  and  service.     .     . 

It  is  to  be  all  made  of  fantasy, 

All  made  of  passion,  and  all  made  of  wishes, 

All  adoration,  duty,  and  observance, 

All  humbleness,  all  patience,  and  impatience, 

All  purity,  all  trial,  all  obedience. 

Coleridge  also  vaguely  recognized  the  composite  nature  of 
love  in  the  first  stanza  of  his  famous  poem  : 

All  thoughts,  all  passions,  all  delights, 
Whatever  stirs  this  mortal  frame, 
All  are  but  ministers  of  love, 
And  feed  his  sacred  flame. 

And  Swift  adds,  in  "  Cadenus  and  Vanessa  i" 

Love,  why  do  we  one  passion  call, 
When  'tis  a  compound  of  them  all  ? 

The  eminent  Danish  critic,  George  Brandes,  though  a 
special  student  of  English  literature,  overlooked  these  poets 
when  he  declared,  in  one  of  his  lectures  on  literary  history 
(1872),  that  the  book  in  which  love  is  for  the  first  time  looked 
on  as  something  composite  and  an  attempt  made  to  analyze 
it  into  its  elements,  is  Benjamin  Constant's  Adolphe  (which 
appeared  in  1816).  "In  Adolphe,"  he  says,  "and  in  all 
the  literature  associated  with  that  book,  we  are  informed 
accurately  how  many  parts,  how  many  grains,  of  friendship, 
devotion,  vanity,  ambition,  admiration,  respect,  sensual 
attraction,  illusion,  fancy,  deception,  hate,  satiety,  enthu- 
siasm, reasoning  calculation,  etc.,  are  contained  in  the  mixt- 
um  compositum  which  the  enamoured  persons  call  love."  This 
list,  moreover,  does  not  accurately  name  a  single  one  of  the 


HERBERT   SPENCER'S   ANALYSIS  11 

essential  ingredients  of  true  love,  dwelling  only  on  associated 
phenomena,  whereas  Shakspere's  lines  call  attention  to  three 
states  of  mind  which  form  part  of  the  quintessence  of  ro- 
mantic love — gallant  "  service,"  "  adoration,"  and  "  purity  " 
— while  "  patience  and  impatience"  may  perhaps  be  accept- 
ed as  an  equivalent  of  what  I  call  the  mixed  moods  of  hope 
and  despair. 

HERBERT   SPENCER'S   ANALYSIS 

Nevertheless  the  first  thinker  who  treated  love  as  a  com- 
pound feeling  and  consciously  attempted  a  philosophical 
analysis  of  it  was  Herbert  Spencer.  In  1855  he  published  his 
Principles  of  Psychology,  and  in  1870  appeared  a  greatly  en- 
larged edition,  paragraph  215  of  which  contains  the  follow- 
ing exposition  of  his  views  : 

"  The  passion  which  unites  the  sexes  is  habitually  spoken 
of  as  though  it  were  a  simple  feeling  ;  whereas  it  is  the  most 
compound,  and  therefore  the  most  powerful,  of  all  the  feel- 
ings. Added  to  the  purely  physical  elements  of  it  are  first  to 
be  noticed  those  highly  complex  impressions  produced  by 
personal  beauty  ;  around  which  are  aggregated  a  variety  of 
pleasurable  ideas,  not  in  themselves  amatory,  but  which 
have  an  organized  relation  to  the  amatory  feeling.  With 
this  there  is  united  the  complex  sentiment  which  we  term 
affection — a  sentiment  which,  as  it  exists  between  those  of  the 
same  sex,  must  be  regarded  as  an  independent  sentiment,  but 
one  which  is  here  greatly  exalted.  Then  there  is  the  senti- 
ment of  admiration,  respect,  or  reverence — in  itself  one  of 
considerable  power,  and  which  in  this  relation  becomes  in  a 
high  degree  active.  There  comes  next  the  feeling  called  love 
of  approbation.  To  be  preferred  above  all  the  world,  and 
that  by  one  admired  beyond  all  others,  is  to  have  the  love  of 
approbation  gratified  in  a  degree  passing  every  previous 
experience  :  especially  as  there  is  added  that  indirect  grati- 
fication of  it  which  results  from  the  preference  being  wit- 
nessed by  unconcerned  persons.  Further,  the  allied  emotion 
of  self-esteem  comes  into  play.  To  have  succeeded  in  gaining 
such  attachment  from,  and  sway  over,  another,  is  a  proof  of 
power  which  cannot  fail  agreeably  to  excite  the  amour  propre. 
Yet  again  the  proprietary  feeling  has  its  share  in  the  general 
activity  :  there  is  the  pleasure  of  possession — the  two  belong 
to  each  other.  Once  more,  the  relation  allows  of  an  extended 


12  HISTORY   OF   AN   IDEA 

liberty  of  action.  Toward  other  persons  a  restrained  behavior 
is  requisite.  Hound  each  there  is  a  subtle  boundary  that  may 
not  be  crossed — an  individuality  on  which  none  may  trespass. 
But  in  this  case  the  barriers  are  thrown  down  ;  and  thus  the 
love  of  unrestrained  activity  is  gratified.  Finally,  there  is 
an  exaltation  of  the  sympathies.  Egoistic  pleasures  of  all 
kinds  are  doubled  by  another's  sympathetic  participation ; 
and  the  pleasures  of  another  are  added  to  the  egoistic  pleas- 
ures. Thus,  round  the  physical  feeling  forming  the  nucleus 
of  the  whole,  are  gathered  the  feelings  produced  by  personal 
beauty,  that  constituting  simple  attachment,  those  of  rever- 
ence, of  love  of  approbation,  of  self-esteem,  of  property,  of 
love  of  freedom,  of  sympathy.  These,  all  greatly  exalted, 
and  severally  tending  to  reflect  their  excitements  on  one 
another,  unite  to  form  the  mental  state  we  call  love.  And  as 
each  of  them  is  itself  comprehensive  of  multitudinous  states 
of  consciousness,  we  may  say  that  this  passion  fuses  into  one 
immense  aggregate  most  of  the  elementary  excitations  of 
which  we  are  capable  ;  and  that  hence  results  its  irresistible 
power/' 

Eibot  has  copied  this  analysis  of  love  in  his  Psyclioloyie 
des  Sentiments  (p.  249),  with  the  comment  that  it  is  the  best 
known  to  him  (1896)  and  that  he  sees  nothing  to  add  or  to 
take  away  from  it.  Inasmuch  as  it  forms  merely  an  episodic 
illustration  in  course  of  a  general  argument,  it  certainly  bears 
witness  to  the  keenness  of  Spencer's  intellect.  Yet  I  cannot 
agree  with  Ribot  that  it  is  a  complete  analysis  of  love.  It 
aided  me  in  conceiving  the  plan  for  my  first  book,  but  I  soon 
found  that  it  covered  only  a  small  part  of  the  ground.  Of 
the  ingredients  as  suggested  by  him  I  accepted  only  two — 
Sympathy,  and  the  feelings  associated  with  Personal  Beauty. 
What  he  called  love  of  approbation,  self-esteem,  and  pleasure 
of  possession  I  subsummed  under  the  name  of  Pride  of  Con- 
quest and  Possession.  Further  reflection  has  convinced  me 
that  it  would  have  been  wiser  if,  instead  of  treating  Romantic 
Love  as  a  phase  of  affection  (which,  of  course,  was  in  itself 
quite  correct),  I  had  followed  Spencer's  example  and  made 
affection  one  of  the  ingredients  of  the  amorous  passion.  In 
the  present  volume  I  have  made  the  change  and  added  also 
Adoration,  which  includes  what  Spencer  calls  "the  senti- 
ment of  admiration,  respect,  or  reverence,"  while  calling 


ACTIVE   IMPULSES   MUST   BE   ADDED  13 

attention  to  the  superlative  phase  of  these  sentiments  which 
is  so  characteristic  of  the  lover,  who  does  not  say,  "  I  respect 
you/'  but  "  I  adore  you."  I  may  therefore  credit  Spencer 
with  having  suggested  three  or  four  only  of  the  fourteen 
essential  ingredients  which  I  find  in  love. 


ACTIVE   IMPULSES   MUST   BE   ADDED 

The  most  important  distinction  between  Spencer's  analysis  of 
love  and  mine  is  that  he  treats  it  merely  as  a  composite  feeling, 
or  a  group  of  emotions,  whereas  I  treat  it  as  a  complex  state 
of  mind  including  not  only  diverse  feelings  or  sentiments — 
sympathy,  admiration  of  beauty,  jealousy,  affection — but 
the  active,  altruistic  impulses  of  gallantry  and  self-sacri- 
fice, which  are  really  more  essential  to  an  understanding  of 
the  essence  of  love,  and  a  better  test  of  it,  than  the  senti- 
ments named  by  Spencer.  He  ignores  also  the  absolutely 
essential  traits  of  individual  preference  and  monopolism,  be- 
sides coyness,  hyperbole,  the  mixed  moods  of  hope  and  de- 
spair, and  purity,  with  the  diverse  emotions  accompanying 
them.  An  effort  to  trace  the  evolution  of  the  ingredients  of 
love  was  first  made  in  my  book,  though  in  a  fragmentary 
way,  in  which  respect  the  present  volume  will  be  found  a 
great  improvement.  Apart  from  the  completion  of  the  anal- 
ysis of  love,  my  most  important  contribution  to  the  study  of 
this  subject  lies  in  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  "  love" 
being  so  vague  and  comprehensive  a  term,  the  only  satisfac- 
tory way  of  studying  its  evolution  is  to  trace  the  evolution  of 
each  of  its  ingredients  separately,  as  I  do  in  the  present 
volume  in  the  long  chapter  entitled  "What  Is  Romantic 
Love  ?  " 

In  Romantic  Love  and  Personal  Beauty  (180)  I  wrote  that 
perhaps  the  main  reason  why  no  one  had  anticipated  me 
in  the  theory  that  love  is  an  exclusively  modern  sentiment 
was  that  no  distinction  had  commonly  been  made  between 
romantic  love  and  conjugal  affection,  noble  examples  of  the 
latter  being  recorded  in  countries  where  romantic  love  was 
not  possible  owing  to  the  absence  of  opportunities  for  court- 


14  HISTORY   OF   AN   IDEA 

ship.  I  still  hold  that  conjugal  love  antedated  the  romantic 
variety,  but  further  study  has  convinced  me  that  (as  will  be 
shown  in  the  chapters  011  Conjugal  Love  and  on  India,  and 
Greece)  much  of  what  has  been  taken  as  evidence  of  wifely 
devotion  is  really  only  a  proof  of  man's  tyrannic  selfishness 
which  compelled  the  woman  always  to  subordinate  herself  to 
her  cruel  master.  The  idea  on  which  I  placed  so  much  em- 
phasis, that  opportunity  for  prolonged  courtship  is  essential 
to  the  growth  of  romantic  love,  was  some  years  later  set  forth 
by  Dr.  Drummond  in  his  Ascent  of  Man  where  he  comments 
eloquently  on  the  fact  that  "  affection  needs  time  to  grow." 

SENSUALITY   THE   ANTIPODE   OF   LOVE 

The  keynote  of  my  first  book  lies  of  course  in  the  distinc- 
tion between  sensual  love  and  romantic  love.  This  distinc- 
tion seemed  to  me  so  self-evident  that  I  did  not  dwell  on  it 
at  length,  but  applied  myself  chiefly  to  the  task  of  prov- 
ing that  savages  and  ancient  nations  knew  only  one  kind,  be- 
ing strangers  to  romantic  or  pure  love.  When  I  wrote  (76) 
"  No  one,  of  course,  would  deny  that  sensual  passion  pre- 
vailed in  Athens ;  but  sensuality  is  the  very  antipode  of 
love,"  I  never  dreamed  that  anyone  would  object  to  this  dis- 
tinction in  itself.  Great,  therefore,  was  my  amazement 
when,  on  reading  the  London  Saturday  Review's  comments 
on  my  book,  I  came  across  the  following  :  "  and  when  we 
find  Mr.  Finck  marking  off  Romantic  Love  not  merely  from 
Conjugal  Love,  but  from  what  he  is  pleased  to  call  '  sensu- 
ality/ we  begin  to  suspect  that  he  really  does  not  know  what 
he  is  talking  about."  This  criticism,  with  several  others 
similar  to  it,  was  of  great  use  to  me,  as  it  led  to  a  series  of 
studies,  which  convinced  me  that  even  at  the  present  day  the 
nature  of  romantic  love  is  not  understood  by  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  Europeans  and  Americans,  many  of  them  very  es- 
timable and  intelligent  individuals. 


THE   WORD   ROMANTIC  15 

THE   WORD   ROMANTIC 

Another  London  paper,  the  Academy,  took  me  to  task  for 
using  the  word  "  romantic "  in  the  sense  I  applied  to  it. 
But  in  this  case,  too,  further  research  has  shown  that  I 
was  justified  in  using  that  word  to  designate  pure  prematri- 
monial  love.  There  is  a  passage  in  Steele's  Lover  (dated 
1714)  which  proves  that  it  must  have  been  in  common  use  in  a 
similar  sense  two  centuries  ago.  The  passage  refers  to  "  the 
reign  of  the  amorous  Charles  the  Second/'  and  declares  that 
"  the  licenses  of  that  court  did  not  only  make  the  Love  which 
the  Vulgar  call  Romantick,  the  object  of  Jest  and  Ridicule,  but 
even  common  Decency  and  Modesty  were  almost  abandoned 
as  formal  and  unnatural. "  Here  there  is  an  obvious  antithe- 
sis between  romantic  and  sensual.  The  same  antithesis  was 
used  by  Hegel  in  contrasting  the  sensual  love  of  the  ancient 
Greeks  and  Romans  with  what  he  calls  modern  ' i  romantic  " 
love.  Waitz-Gerland,  too,  in  the  six  volumes  of  their  An- 
thropologie  der  Naturvdlker,  repeatedly  refer  to  (alleged) 
cases  of  "  romantic  love "  among  savages  and  barbarians, 
having  in  all  probability  adopted  the  term  from  Hegel.  The 
peculiar  appropriateness  of  the  word  romantic  to  designate 
imaginative  love  will  be  set  forth  later  in  the  chapter  en- 
titled Sensuality,  Sentimentality,  and  Sentiment.  Here  I  will 
only  add  an  important  truth  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
repeat  often — that  a  romantic  love-story  is  not  necessarily  a 
story  of  romantic  love  ;  for  it  is  obvious,  for  instance,  that 
an  elopement  prompted  by  the  most  frivolous  sensual  pas- 
sion, without  a  trace  of  real  love,  may  lead  to  the  most  ro- 
mantic incidents. 

In  the  chapters  on  affection,  gallantry,  and  self-sacrifice, 
I  shall  make  it  clear  even  to  a  Saturday  Reviewer  that  the 
gross  sensual  infatuation  which  leads  a  man  to  shoot  a  girl 
who  refuses  him,  or  a  tramp  to  assault  a  woman  on  a  lonely 
road  and  afterward  to  cut  her  throat  in  order  to  hide  his 
crime,  is  absolutely  antipodal  to  the  refined,  ardent,  affection- 
ate Romantic  Love  which  impels  a  man  to  sacrifice  his  own 
life  rather  than  let  any  harm  or  dishonor  come  to  the  beloved. 


16  HISTORY    OF   AN   IDEA 

ANIMALS   HIGHER  THAN   SAVAGES 

Dr.  Albert  Moll  of  Berlin,  in  his  second  treatise  on  sexual 
anomalies,1  takes  occasion  to  express  his  disbelief  in  my  view 
that  love  before  marriage  is  a  sentiment  peculiar  to  modern 
man.  He  declares  that  traits  of  such  love  occur  even  in  the 
courtship  of  animals,  particularly  birds,  and  implies  that  this 
upsets  my  theory.  On  the  same  ground  a  reviewer  in  a  New 
York  evening  paper  accused  me  of  being  illogical.  Such 
criticisms  illustrate  the  vague  ideas  regarding  evolution  that 
are  still  current.  It  is  assumed  that  all  the  faculties  are  de- 
veloped step  by  step  simultaneously  as  we  proceed  from  lower 
to  higher  animals,  which  is  as  illogical  as  it  would  be  to  assume 
that  since  birds  have  such  beautiful  and  convenient  things  as 
wings,  and  dogs  belong  to  a  higher  genus  of  animals,  there- 
fore dogs  ought  to  have  better  wings  than  birds.  Most  ani- 
mals are  cleaner  than  savages ;  why  should  not  some  of  them 
be  more  romantic  in  their  love-affairs  ?  I  shall  take  occasion 
repeatedly  to  emphasize  this  point  in  the  present  volume, 
though  I  alluded  to  it  already  in  my  first  book  (55)  in  the 
following  passage,  which  my  critics  evidently  overlooked  : 

te  In  passing  from  animals  to  human  beings  we  find  at  first 
not  only  no  advance  in  the  sexual  relations,  but  a  decided 
retrogression.  Among  some  species  of  birds,  courtship  and 
marriage  are  infinitely  more  refined  and  noble  than  among 
the  lowest  savages,  and  it  is  especially  in  their  treatment  of 
females,  both  before  and  after  mating,  that  not  only  birds 
but  all  animals  show  an  immense  superiority  over  primitive 
man  ;  for  male  animals  fight  only  among  themselves  and  never 
maltreat  the  females." 

LOVE   THE    LAST,  NOT  THE   FIRST,  PRODUCT   OF   CIVILIZATION 

Notwithstanding  this  striking  and  important  fact,  there  is 
a  large  number  of  sentimental  writers  who  make  the  ex- 
traordinary claim  that  the  lower  races,  however  savage  they 
may  be  in  everything  else,  are  like  ourselves  in  their  amor- 
ous relations ;  that  they  love  and  admire  personal  beauty 

>  Studien  uber  die  Libido  Sexualis,  I.,  Pt.  I.,  28. 


PLAN    OF   THIS   VOLUME  17 

just  as  we  do.  The  main  object  of  the  present  volume 
is  to  demolish  this  doctrine  ;  to  prove  that  sexual  refine- 
ment and  the  sense  of  personal  beauty  are  not  the  earliest 
but  the  latest  products  of  civilization.  I  have  shown  else- 
where1 that  Japanese  civilization  is  in  many  important  re- 
spects far  superior  to  ours  ;  yet  in  their  treatment  of  women 
and  estimate  of  love,  this  race  has  not  yet  risen  above 
the  barbarous  stage ;  and  it  will  be  shown  in  this  volume 
that  if  we  were  to  judge  the  ancient  Greeks  and  the  Hin- 
doos from  this  point  oi;  view,  we  should  have  to  deny  them 
the  epithet  of  civilized.  Morgan  found  that  the  most  ad- 
vanced of  American  Indians,  the  Iroquois,  had  no  capacity  for 
love.  His  testimony  in  detail  will  be  found  in  its  proper 
place  in  this  volume,  together  with  that  of  competent  ob- 
servers regarding  other  tribes  and  races.  Some  of  this  evi- 
dence was  known  to  the  founders  of  the  modern  science  of 
sociology.  It  led  Spencer  to  write  en  passant  (Pr.  Soc.,  I.,  § 
337,  §  339)  that  "absence  of  the  tender  emotion  .  .  . 
habitually  characterizes  men  of  low  types ; "  and  that  the 
"  higher  sentiments  accompanying  union  of  'the  sexes  .  .  . 
do  not  exist  among  primitive  men."  It  led  Sir  John  Lub- 
bock  to  write  (50)  regarding  the  lowest  races  that  "  love  is 
almost  unknown  among  them ;  and  marriage,  in  its  lowest 
phases,  is  by  no  means  a  matter  of  affection  and  companion- 
ship." 

PLAN   OF  THIS  VOLUME 

These  are  casual  adumbrations  of  a  great  truth  that  applies 
not  only  to  the  lowest  races  (savages)  but  to  the  more  ad- 
vanced barbarians  as  well  as  to  ancient  civilized  nations,  as 
the  present  volume  will  attempt  to  demonstrate.  To  make  my 
argument  more  impressive  and  conclusive,  I  present  it  in  a 
twofold  form.  First  I  take  the  fourteen  ingredients  of  love 
separately,  showing  how  they  developed  gradually,  whence  it 
follows  necessarily  that  love  as  a  whole  developed  gradually. 
Then  I  take  the  Africans,  Australians,  American  Indians, 
etc.,  separately,  describing  their  diverse  amorous  customs 

1  In  the  last  chapter  of  Lotos-Time  in  Japan. 


18  HISTORY    OF   AN   IDEA 

and  pointing  out  everywhere  the  absence  of  the  altruistic, 
supersensual  traits  which  constitute  the  essence  of  romantic 
love  as  distinguished  from  sensual  passion.  All  this  will  be 
preceded  by  a  chapter  on  "  How  Sentiments  Change  and 
Grow,"  which  will  weaken  the  bias  against  the  notion  that  so 
elemental  a  feeling  as  sexual  love  should  have  undergone  so 
great  a  change,  by  pointing  out  that  other  seemingly  instinc- 
tive and  unalterable  feelings  have  changed  and  developed. 

GREEK   SENTIMENTALITY 

The  inclusion  of  the  civilized  Greeks  in  a  treatise  on  Prim- 
itive Love  will  naturally  cause  surprise  ;  but  I  cannot  attribute 
a  capacity  for  anything  more  than  primitive  sensual  love  to  a 
nation  which,  in  its  pre matrimonial  customs,  manifested  none 
of  the  essential  altruistic  traits  of  Komantic  Love  —  sym- 
pathy, gallantry,  self-sacrifice,  affection,  adoration,  and  purity. 
As  a  matter  of  course,  the  sensualism  of  a  Greek  or  Roman 
is  a  much  less  coarse  thing  than  an  Australian's,  which  does 
not  even  include  kisses  or  other  caresses.  While  Greek  love 
is  not  a  sentiment,  it  may  be  sentimental,  that  is,  an  affecta- 
tion of  sentiment,  differing  from  real  sentiment  as  adulation 
does  from  adoration,  as  gallantry  or  the  risking  of  life  to  se- 
cure favors  do  from  genuine  gallantry  of  the  heart  and  self- 
sacrifice  for  the  benefit  of  another.  This  important  point 
which  I  here  superadd  to  my  theory,  was  overlooked  by 
Benecke  when  he  attributed  a  capacity  for  real  love  to  the 
later  Greeks  of  the  Alexandrian  period. 

IMPORTANCE   OF   LOVE 

One  of  the  most  important  theses  advanced  in  Romantic 
Love  and  Personal  Beauty  (323,  424,  etc.),  wras  that  love,  far 
from  being  merely  a  passing  episode  in  human  life,  is  one  of 
the  most  powerful  agencies  working  for  the  improvement  of 
the  human  race.  During  the  reign  of  Natural  Selection,  be- 
fore the  birth  of  love,  cripples,  the  insane,  the  incurably  dis- 
eased, were  cruelly  neglected  and  allowed  to  perish.  Chris- 
tianity rose  up  against  this  cruelty,  building  hospitals  and 


IMPORTANCE    OF    LOVE  19 

saving  the  infirm,  who  were  thus  enabled  to  survive,  marry, 
and  hand  down  their  infirmities  to  future  generations.  As 
a  mediator  between  these  two  agencies,  love  comes  in  ;  for 
Cupid,  as  I  have  said,  "  does  not  kill  those  who  do  not  come 
up  to  his  standard  of  health  and  beauty,  but  simply  ignores 
and  condemns  them  to  a  life  of  single-blessedness  ;  "  which  in 
these  days  is  not  such  a  hardship  as  it  used  to  be.  This 
thought  will  be  enlarged  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  present 
volume,  on  the  "  Utility  and  Future  of  Love,"  which  will 
indicate  how  the  amorous  sense  is  becoming  more  and  more 
fastidious  and  beneficial.  In  the  same  chapter  attention  will 
be  called,  for  the  first  time,  to  the  three  great  strata  in  the  evo- 
lution of  parental  love  and  morality.  In  the  first,  represented 
by  savages,  parents  think  chiefly  of  their  own  comfort,  and 
children  get  the  minimum  of  attention  consistent  with  their 
preservation.  In  the  second,  which  includes  most  of  the 
modern  Europeans  and  Americans,  parents  exercise  care  that 
their  children  shall  make  an  advantageous  marriage — that  is 
a  marriage  which  shall  secure  them  wealth  or  comfort ;  but 
the  frequency  with  which  girls  are  married  off  to  old,  infirm, 
or  unworthy  men,  shows  how  few  parents  as  yet  have  a 
thought  of  their  grandchildren.  In  the  next  stage  of  moral 
evolution,  which  we  are  now  entering,  the  grandchildren's 
welfare  also  will  be  considered.  In  consequence  of  the  per- 
sistent failure  to  consider  the  grandchildren,  the  human  race 
is  now  anything  but  a  model  of  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  perfection.  Luckily  love,  even  in  its  sensual  stages, 
has  counteracted  this  parental  selfishness  and  myopia  by  in- 
ducing young  folks  to  marry  for  health,  youth,  and  beauty, 
and  creating  an  aversion  to  old  age,  disease,  and  deformity. 
As  love  becomes  more  and  more  fastidious  and  more  regardful 
of  intellectual  worth  and  moral  beauty — that  is  becomes  Ro- 
mantic Love — its  sway  becomes  greater  and  greater,  and  the 
time  will  come  when  questions  relating  to  it  will  form  the 
most  important  chapters  in  treatises  on  moral  philosophy, 
which  now  usually  ignore  them  altogether. 


HOW  SENTIMENTS   CHANGE  AND   GROW 

IN  conversation  with  friends  I  have  found  that  the  current 
belief  that  love  must  have  been  always  and  everywhere  the 
same,  because  it  is  such  a  strong  and  elemental  passion,  is  most 
easily  shaken  in  this  a  priori  position  by  pointing  out  that 
there  are  other  strong  feelings  in  our  minds  which  were  lack- 
ing among  earlier  and  lower  races.  The  love  of  grand,  wild 
scenery,  for  instance — what  we  call  romantic  scenery — is  as 
modern  as  the  romantic  love  of  men  and  women.  Ruskiu 
tells  us  that  in  his  youth  he  derived  a  pleasure  from  such 
scenery  "  comparable  for  intensity  only  to  the  joy  of  a  lover 
in  being  near  a  noble  and  kind  mistress." 

2STO   LOVE   OF   ROMANTIC    SCENERY 

Savages,  on  the  other  hand,  are  prevented  from  appre- 
ciating snow  mountains,  avalanches,  roaring  torrents,  ocean 
storms,  deep  glens,  jungles,  and  solitudes,  not  only  by  their 
lack  of  refinement,  but  by  their  fears  of  wild  animals,  hu- 
man enemies,  and  evil  spirits.  "  In  the  Australian  bush," 
writes  Tylor  (P.  C.,  II.,  203),  "demons  whistle  in  the 
branches,  and  stooping  with  outstretched  arms  sneak  among 
the  trunks  to  seize  the  wayfarer  ; "  and  Powers  (88)  writes  in 
regard  to  California  Indians  that  they  listen  to  night  noises 
with  unspeakable  horror  :  "It  is  difficult  for  us  to  conceive 
of  the  speechless  terrors  which  these  poor  wretches  suffer 
from  the  screeching  of  owls,  the  shrieking  of  night-hawks, 
the  rustling  of  the  trees  ...  all  of  which  are  only  channels 
of  poison  wherewith  the  demons  would  smite  them."  To  the 
primitive  mind,  the  world  over,  a  high  mountain  is  the  hor- 
ror of  horrors,  the  abode  of  evil  spirits,  and  an  attempt  to 
climb  it  certain  death.  So  strong  is  this  superstition  that 
explorers  have  often  experienced  the  greatest  difficulty  in 

20 


NO    LOVE    IN    EARLY    RELIGION  21 

getting  natives  to  serve  as  porters  of  provisions  in  their  as- 
cents of  peaks.1  Even  the  Greeks  and  Romans  cared  for 
landscape  only  in  so  far  as  it  was  humanized  (parks  and  gar- 
dens) and  habitable.  "  Their  souls,"  says  Rohde  (511), 
"could  never  have  been  touched  by  the  sublime  thrills  we 
feel  in  the  presence  of  the  dark  surges  of  the  sea,  the  gloom 
of  a  primeval  forest,  the  solitude  and  silence  of  sunlit  moun- 
tain summits."  And  Humboldt,  who  first  noted  the  absence 
in  Greek  and  Roman  writings  of  the  admiration  of  romantic 
scenery,  remarked  (24) : 

"  Of  the  eternal  snow  of  the  Alps,  glowing  in  the  rosy  light 
of  the  morning  or  evening  sun,  of  the  loveliness  of  the  blue 
glacier  ice,  of  the  stupendous  grandeur  of  Swiss  landscape, 
no  description  has  come  down  to  us  from  them  ;  yet  there  was 
a  constant  procession  over  these  Alps,  from  Helvetia  to  Gallia, 
of  statesmen  and  generals  with  literary  men  in  their  train. 
All  these  travellers  tell  us  only  of  the  steep  and  abominable 
roads  ;  the  romantic  aspect  of  scenery  never  engages  their  at- 
tention. It  is  even  known  that  Julius  Caesar,  when  he 
returned  to  his  legions  in  Gaul,  employed  his  time  while 
crossing  the  Alps  in  writing  his  grammatical  treatise  '  De 
Aualogia.'^ 

A  sceptical  reader  might  retort  that  the  love  of  romantic 
scenery  is  so  subtle  a  sentiment,  and  so  far  from  being  uni- 
versal even  now,  that  it  would  be  rash  to  argue  from  its 
absence  among  savages,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  that  love,  a  senti- 
ment so  much  stronger  and  more  prevalent,  could  have  been 
in  the  same  predicament.  Let  us  therefore  take  another 
sentiment,  the  religious,  the  vast  power  and  wide  prevalence 
of  which  no  one  will  deny. 

NO    LOVE   IIST   EARLY   RELIGION" 

To  a  modern  Christian,  God  is  a  deity  who  is  all-wise,  all- 
powerful,  infinite,  holy,  the  personification  of  all  the  highest 
virtues.  To  accuse  this  Deity  of  the  slightest  moral  flaw 
would  be  blasphemy.  Now,  without  going  so  far  down  as  the 
lowest  savages,  let  us  see  what  conception  such  barbarians  as 

1  An  amusing  instance  of  this  trait  may  be  found  in  Johnston's  account  of 
his  ascent  of  the  Kilima-Njaro  (271-276). 


22       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE    AND    GROW 

the  Polynesians  have  of  their  gods.  The  moral  habits  of  some 
of  them  are  indicated  by  their  names — "  The  Rioter/'  "  The 
Adulterer,"  "  Ndauthina,"  who  steals  women  of  rank  or 
beauty  by  night  or  by  torchlight,  "  The  Human-brain 
Eater,"  "The  Murderer."  Others  of  their  gods  are  "proud, 
envious,  covetous,  revengeful,  and  the  subject  of  every 
basest  passion.  They  are  demoralized  heathen — monster  ex- 
pressions of  moral  corruption"  (Williams,  184).  These  gods 
make  war,  and  kill  and  eat  each  other  just  as  mortals  do. 
The  Polynesians  believed,  too,  that  "  the  spirits  of  the  dead 
are  eaten  by  the  gods  or  demons"  (Ellis,  P.  R.,  L,  275).  It 
might  be  said  that  since  a  Polynesian  sees  no  crime  in  adul- 
tery, revenge,  murder,  or  cannibalism,  his  attributing  such 
qualities  to  his  gods  cannot,  from  his  point  of  view,  be  con- 
sidered blasphemous.  Quite  true ;  but  my  point  is  that 
men  who  have  made  so  little  progress  in  sympathy  and 
moral  perception  as  to  see  no  harm  in  adultery,  revenge,  mur- 
der and  cannibalism,  and  in  attributing  them  to  their  gods, 
are  altogether  too  coarse  and  callous  to  be  able  to  experi- 
ence the  higher  religious  emotions.  This  inference  is  borne 
out  by  what  a  most  careful  observer  (Ellis,  P.  R.,  L,  291) 
says:  "Instead  of  exercising  those  affections  of  gratitude, 
complacency,  and  love  toward  the  objects  of  their  worship 
which  the  living  God  supremely  requires,  they  regarded  their 
deities  with  horrific  dread,  and  worshipped  only  with  en- 
slaving fear." 

This  "enslaving  fear"  is  the  principal  ingredient  of  primi- 
tive religious  emotion  everywhere.  To  the  savage  and  bar- 
barian, religion  is  not  a  consolation  and  a  blessing,  but  a 
terror.  Du  Chaillu  says  of  the  equatorial  Africans  (103)  that 
"  their  whole  lives  are  saddened  by  the  fears  of  evil  spirits, 
witchcraft,  and  other  kindred  superstitions  under  which  they 
labor."  Benevolent  deities,  even  if  believed  in,  receive  little 
or  no  attention,  because,  being  good,  they  are  supposed  to  do 
no  harm  anyway,  whereas  the  malevolent  gods  must  be  pro- 
pitiated by  sacrifices.  The  African  Dahomans,  for  instance, 
ignore  their  Malm  because  his  intentions  are  naturally 
friendly,  whereas  their  Satan,  the  wicked  Legba,  has  hun- 


NO   LOVE   IN   EARLY   RELIGION  23 

dreds  of  statues  before  which  offerings  are  made.  "  Early  re- 
ligions/'as  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  tersely  puts  it,  "are  selfish, 
not  disinterested.  The  worshipper  is  not  contemplative,  so 
much  as  eager  to  gain  something  to  his  advantage."  If  the 
gods  fail  to  respond  to  the  offerings  made  to  them,  the  sacri- 
ficers  naturally  feel  aggrieved,  and  show  their  displeasure  in 
a  way  which  to  a  person  who  knows  refined  religion  seems 
shocking  and  sacrilegious.  In  Japan,  China,  and  Corea,  if 
the  gods  fail  to  do  what  is  expected  of  them,  their  images  are 
unceremoniously  walloped.  In  India,  if  the  rains  fail,  thou- 
sands of  priests  send  up  their  prayers.  If  the  drought  still 
continues,  they  punish  their  idols  by  holding  them  under 
water.  During  a  thunderstorm  in  Africa,  Chapman  (I.,  45) 
witnessed  the  following  extraordinary  scene  : 

"A  great  number  of  women,  employed  in  reaping  the  ex- 
tensive corn-fields  through  which  we  passed  were  raising 
their  hoes  and  voices  to  heaven,  and,  yelling  furiously,  cursed 
'  Morimo7  (God),  as  the  terrific  thunder-claps  succeeded  each 
vivid  flash  of  lightning.  On  inquiry  I  was  informed  by  '  Old 
Booy '  that  they  were  indignant  at  the  interruption  of  their 
labors,  and  that  they  therefore  cursed  and  menaced  the  cause. 
Such  blasphemy  was  awful,  even  among  heathens,  and  I  fully 
expected  to  see  the  wrath  of  God  fall  upon  them." 

If  any  pious  reader  of  such  details — which  might  he  multi- 
plied a  thousand-fold — still  believes  that  religious  emotion 
(like  love  !)  is  the  same  everywhere,  let  him  compare  his  own 
devoted  feelings  during  worship  in  a  Christian  church  with 
the  emotions  which  must  sway  those  who  participate  in  a  re- 
ligious ceremony  like  that  described  in  the  following  passage 
taken  from  Rowney's  Wild  Tribes  of  India  (105).  It  refers 
to  the  sacrifices  made  by  the  Khonds  to  the  God  of  War,  the 
victims  of  which,  both  male  and  female,  are  often  bought 
young  and  brought  up  for  this  special  purpose  : 

"  For  a  month  prior  to  the  sacrifice  there  was  much  feasting 
and  intoxication,  with  dancing  round  the  Meriah,  or  victim 
.  and  on  the  day  before  the  rite  he  was  stupefied  with 
toddy  and  bound  at  the  bottom  of  a  post.  The  assembled 
multitude  then  danced  around  the  post  to  music,  singing 
hymns  of  invocation  to  some  such  effect  as  follows  :  '  0  God, 


24       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE   AND    GROW 

we  offer  a  sacrifice  to  you  !  Give  us  good  crops  in  return, 
good  seasons,  and  health/  On  the  next  day  the  victim  was 
again  intoxicated,  and  anointed  with  oil,  which  was  wiped 
from  his  body  by  those  present,  and  put  on  their  heads  as  a 
blessing.  The  victim  was  then  carried  m  procession  round 
the  village,  preceded  by  music,  and  on  returning  to  the  post 
a  hog  was  sacrificed  to  ...  the  village  deity  .  .  . 
the  blood  from  the  carcass  being  allowed  to  flow  into  a  pit 
prepared  to  receive  it.  The  victim,  made  senseless  by  intox- 
ication, was  now  thrown  into  the  pit,  and  his  face  pressed 
down  till  he  died  from  suffocation  in  the  blood  and  mire,  a 
deafening  noise  with  instruments  being  kept  up  all  the  time. 
The  priest  then  cut  a  piece  of  flesh  from  the  body  and  buried 
it  with  ceremony  near  the  village  idol,- all  the  rest  of  the 
people  going  through  the  same  form  after  him." 

Still  more  horrible  details  of  these  sacrifices  are  supplied 
by  Dalton  (288 )  : 

"  Major  Macpherson  notes  that  the  Meriah  in  some  dis- 
tricts is  put  to  death  slowly  by  fire,  the  great  object  being  to 
draw  from  the  victim  as  many  tears  as  possible,  in  the  belief 
that  the  cruel  Tari  will  proportionately  increase  the  supply 
of  rain." 

"  Colonel  Campbell  thus  describes  the  modus  operandi  in 
Chinna  Kimedy  :  'The  miserable  Meriah  is  dragged  along 
the  fields,  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  half-intoxicated  Kandhs, 
who,  shouting  and  screaming,  rush  upon  him,  and  with  their 
knives  cut  the  flesh  piece-meal  from  his  bones,  avoiding  the 
head  and  bowels,  till  the  living  skeleton,  dying  from  loss  of 
blood,  is  relieved  from  torture,  when  its  remains  are  burnt 
and  the  ashes  mixed  with  the  new  grain  to  preserve  it  from 
insects/ ' 

In  some  respect,  the  civilized  Hindoos  are  even  worse  than 
the  wild  tribes  of  India.  Nothing  is  more  sternly  con- 
demned and  utterly  abhorred  by  modern  religion  than  licen- 
tiousness and  obscenity,  but  a  well-informed  and  eminently 
trustworthy  missionary,  the  Abbe  Dubois,  declares  that  sensu- 
ality and  licentiousness  are  among  the  elements  of  Hindoo  re- 
ligious life  : 

"  "Whatever  their  religion  sets  before  them,  tends  to  en- 
courage these  vices  ;  and,  consequently,  all  their  senses,  pas- 
sions, and  interests  are  leagued  in  its  favor ;j>  (II. ,  113,  etc.). 


NO   LOVE    IN    EARLY    RELIGION  25 

Their  religions  festivals  et  Are  nothing  but  sports  ;  and  on  no 
occasion  of  life  are  modesty  and  decorum  more  carefully  ex- 
cluded than  during  the  celebration  of  their  religious  myste- 
ries." 

More  immoral  even  than  their  own  religious  practices  are 
the  doings  of  their  deities.  The  Bhagavata  is  a  book  which 
deals  with  the  adventures  of  the  god  Krishna,  of  whom 
Dubois  says  (II.,  205)  : 

"  It  was  his  chief  pleasure  to  go  every  morning  to  the  place 
where  the  women  bathe,  and,  in  concealment,  to  take  advan- 
tage of  their  unguarded  exposure.  Then  he  rushed  amongst 
them,  took  possession  of  their  clothes,  and  gave  a  loose  to  the 
indecencies  of  language  and  of  gesture.  He  maintained  six- 
teen wives,  who  had  the  title  of  queens,  and  sixteen  thousand 
concubines.  ...  In  obscenity  there  is  nothing  that  can 
be  compared  with  the  Bhagavata.  It  is,  nevertheless,  the  de- 
light of  the  Hindu,  and  the  first  book  they  put  into  the  hands 
of  their  children,  when  learning  to  read." 

Brahmin  temples  are  little  more  than  brothels,  in  each  of 
which  a  dozen  or  more  young  Bayaderes  are  kept  for  the  pur- 
pose of  increasing  the  revenues  of  the  gods  and  their  priests. 
Religious  prostitution  and  theological  licentiousness  prevailed 
also  in  Persia,  Babylonia,  Egypt,  and  other  ancient  civilized 
countries.  Commenting  on  a  series  of  obscene  pictures  found 
in  an  Egyptian  tomb,  Erman  says  (154) :  "  We  are  shocked 
at  the  morality  of  a  nation  which  could  supply  the  deceased 
with  such  literature  for  the  eternal  journey."  Professor 
Robertson  Smith  says  that  "  in  Arabia  and  elsewhere  unre- 
stricted prostitution  was  practised  at  the  temples  and  defended 
on  the  analogy  of  the  license  allowed  to  herself  by  the  un- 
married mother  goddess."  Nor  were  the  early  Greeks  much 
better.  Some  of  their  religious  festivals  were  sensual  orgies, 
some  of  their  gods  nearly  as  licentious  as  those  of  the  Hindoos. 
Their  supreme  god,  Zeus,  is  an  Olympian  Don  Juan,  and  the 
legend  of  the  birth  of  Aphrodite,  their  goddess  of  love,  is  in 
its  original  form  unutterably  obscene.  < 

Before  religious  emotion  could  make  any  approximation  to 
the  devout  feelings  of  a  modern  Christian,  it  was  necessary  to 
eliminate  all  these  licentious,  cruel,  and  blasphemous  features 


26       HOW   SENTIMENTS   CHANGE   AND    GROW 

of  worship — the  eating  or  slaughtering  of  human  victims,  the 
obscene  orgies,  as  well  as  the  spiteful  and  revengeful  acts 
toward  disobedient  gods.  The  progress — like  the  Evolution 
of  Romantic  Love — has  been  from  the  sensual  and  selfish  to 
the  supersensual  and  unselfish.  In  the  highest  religious  ideal, 
love  of  God  takes  the  place  of  fear,  adoration  that  of  terror, 
self-sacrifice  that  of  self-seeking.  But  we  are  still  very  far 
from  that  lofty  ideal.  "  The  lazzarone  of  Naples  prays  to  his 
patron  saint  to  favor  his  choice  of  a  lottery  ticket ;  if  it  turns 
out  an  unlucky  number  he  will  take  the  little  leaden  image 
of  the  saint  from  his  pocket,  revile  it,  spit  on  it,  and  trample 
it  in  the  mud."  "The  Swiss  clergy  opposed  the  system  of 
insuring  growing  crops  because  it  made  their  parishioners  in- 
different to  prayers  for  their  crops"  (Brinton,  R.  /SI,  126,  82). 
These  are  extreme  cases,  but  Italian  lazzaroni  and  Swiss 
peasants  are  by  no  means  the  only  church-goers  whose  worship 
is  inspired  not  by  love  of  God  but  by  the  expectation  of  secur- 
ing a  personal  benefit.  All  those  who  pray  for  worldly  pros- 
perity, or  do  good  deeds  for  the  sake  of  securing  a  happy 
hereafter  for  their  souls,  take  a  selfish,  utilitarian  view  of  the 
deity,  and  even  their  gratitude  for  favors  received  is  too  apt 
to  be  "  a  lively  sense  of  possible  favors  to  come."  Still,  there 
are  now  not  a  few  devotees  who  love  God  for  his  own  sake  ; 
and  who  pray  not  for  luxuries  but  that  their  souls  may  be  forti- 
fied in  virtue  and  their  sympathies  widened.  But  it  is  not 
necessary  to  dwell  on  this  theme  any  longer,  now  that  I  have 
shown  what  I  started  out  to  demonstrate,  that  religious  emo- 
tion is  very  complex  and  variable,  that  in  its  early  stages  it  is 
made  up  of  feelings  which  are  not  loving,  reverential,  or  even 
respectful,  but  cruel,  sacrilegious,  criminal,  and  licentious  ; 
that  religion,  in  a  word,  has  (like  love,  as  I  am  trying  to 
prove)  passed  through  coarse,  carnal,  degrading,  selfish,  utili- 
tarian stages  before  it  reached  the  comparatively  refined, 
spiritual,  sympathetic,  and  devotional  attitude  of  our  time. 

Besides tthe  growing  complexity  of  the  religious  sentiment 
and  its  gradual  ennoblement,  there  are  two  points  I  wish  to 
emphasize.  One  is  that  there  are  among  us  to-day  thousands 
of  intelligent  and  refined  agnostics  who  are  utter  strangers  to 


NO   LOVE    IN   EARLY   RELIGION  27 

all  religious  emotions,  just  as  there  are  thousands  of  men  and 
women  who  have  never  known  and  never  will  know  the  emo- 
tions of  sentimental  love.  Why,  then,  should  it  seem  so  very 
unlikely  that  whole  nations  were  strangers  to  such  love  (as 
they  were  strangers  to  the  higher  religious  sentiment),  even 
though  they  were  as  intelligent  as  the  Greeks  and  Komans  ? 
I  offer  this  consideration  not  as  a  conclusive  argument,  but 
merely  as  a  means  of  overcoming  a  preconceived  bias  against 
my  theory. 

The  other  point  I  wish  to  make  clear  is  that  our  emotions 
change  with  our  ideas.  Obviously  it  would  be  absurd  to  sup- 
pose that  a  man  whose  ideas  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  his 
gods  do  not  prevent  him  from  flogging  them  angrily  in  case 
they  refuse  his  requests  are  the  same  as  those  of  a  pious 
Christian,  who,  if  his  prayers  are  not  answered,  says  to  his 
revered  Creator  :  "  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  done 
in  heaven,'5  and  humbly  prostrates  himself.  And  if  emotions 
in  the  religious  sphere  are  thus  metamorphosed  with  ideas, 
why  is  it  so  unlikely  that  the  sexual  passion,  too,  should 
"  suffer  a  sea  change  into  something  rich  and  strange  ?  " 

The  existence  of  the  wide-spread  prejudice  against  the 
notion  that  love  is  subject  to  the  laws  of  development,  is 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  comparative  psychology  of  the 
emotions  and  sentiments  has  been  strangely  neglected.  An- 
thropology, the  Klondike  of  the  comparative  psychologist, 
reveals  things  seemingly  much  more  incredible  than  the  ab- 
sence of  romantic  love  among  barbarians  and  partly  civ- 
ilized nations  who  had  not  yet  discovered  the  nobler  super- 
sensual  fascinations  which  women  are  capable  of  exerting. 
The  nuggets  of  truth  found  in  that  science  show  that  every 
virtue  known  to  man  grew  up  slowly  into  its  present  exalted 
form.  I  will  illustrate  this  assertion  with  reference  to  one 
general  feeling,  the  horror  of  murder,  and  then  add  a  few 
pages  regarding  virtues  relating  to  the  sexual  sphere  and 
directly  connected  with  the  subject  of  this  book. 


28       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE   AND    GROW 


MUKDER   AS   A   VIRTUE 

The  committing  of  wilful  murder  is  looked  on  with  un- 
utterable horror  in  modern  civilized  communities,  yet  it  took 
eons  of  time  and  the  co-operation  of  many  religious,  social,, 
and  moral  agencies  before  the  idea  of  the  sanctity  of  human 
life  became  what  it  is  now  when  it  might  be  taken  for  an 
instinct  inherent  in  human  nature  itself.  How  far  it  is  from 
being  such  an  instinct  we  shall  see  by  looking  at  the  facts. 
Among  the  lowest  races  and  even  some  of  the  higher  barba- 
rians, murder,,  far  from  being  regarded  as  a  crime,  is  honored 
as  a  virtue  and  a  source  of  glory. 

An  American  Indian's  chief  pride  and  claim  to  tribal  honor 
lies  in  the  number  of  scalps  he  has  torn  from  the  heads  of  men 
he  has  killed.  Of  the  Fijian,  Williams  says  (97)  :  "  Shedding 
of  blood  is  to  him  no  crime,  but  a  glory.  Whoever  may  be 
the  victim — whether  noble  or  vulgar,  old  or  young,  man, 
woman,  or  child — whether  slain  in  war  or  butchered  by  treach- 
ery, to  be  somehow  an  acknowledged  murderer,  is  the  object 
of  a  Fijian's  restless  ambition/'  The  Australian  feels  the  same 
irresistible  impulse  to  kill  every  stranger  he  comes  across  as 
many  of  our  comparatively  civilized  gentlemen  feel  toward 
every  bird  or  wild  animal  they  see.  Lumholtz,  while  he 
lived  among  these  savages,  took  good  care  to  follow  the  ad- 
vice "  never  have  a  black. fellow  behind  you  ;  "  and  he  relates 
a  story  of  a  squatter  who  was  walking  in  the  bush  with  his 
black  boy  hunting  brush  monkeys,  when  the  boy  touched  him 
on  the  shoulder  from  behind  and  said,  "  Let  me  go  ahead/' 
When  the  squatter  asked  why  he  wished  to  go  before  him, 
the  native  answered,  "Because  I  feel  such  an  inclination  to 
kill  you." 

Dalton  (266)  says  of  the  Oraons  in  India  :  "  It  is  doubtful 
if  they  see  any  moral  guilt  in  murder."  But  the  most  as- 
tounding race  of  professional  murderers  are  the  Dyaks  of 
Borneo.  "  Among  them,"  says  Earl,  "  the  more  heads  a 
man  has  cut  off,  the  more  he  is  respected."  "  The  white 
man  reads,"  said  a  Dyak  to  St.  John  :  "we  hunt  heads  in- 


MURDER   AS   A   VIRTUE  29 

stead. "  "Our  Dyaks,"  says  Charles  Brooke,  "were  eter- 
nally requesting  to  be  allowed  to  go  for  heads,  and  their  urgent 
entreaties  often  bore  resemblance  to  children  crying  after 
sugar-plums."  "An  old  Dyak,"  writes  Dalton,  "loves  to 
dwell  upon  his  success  on  these  hunting  excursions,  and  the 
terror  of  the  women  and  children  taken  affords  a  fruitful 
theme  of  amusement  at  their  meetings."  Dalton  speaks  of 
one  expedition  from  which  seven  hundred  heads  were  brought 
home.  The  young  women  were  carried  off,  the  old  ones 
killed  and  all  the  men's  heads  were  cut  off.  Not  that  the 
women  always  escaped.  Among  the  Dusun,  as  a  rule,  says 
Preyer,  "the  heads  were  obtained  in  the  most  cowardly  way 
possible,  a  woman's  or  child's  being  just  as  good  as  a  man's 
.  .  .  so,  as  easier  prey,  the  cowards  seek  them  by  lying 
in  ambush  near  the  plantations."  Families  are  sometimes 
surprised  while  asleep  and  their  heads  cut  off.  Brooke 
tells  of  a  man  who  for  awhile  kept  company  with  a  country- 
woman, and  then  slew  her  and  ran  off  with  her  head. 
"  It  ought  to  be  called  head-stealing  not  head-hunting,"  says 
Hatton  ;  and  Earl  remarks  :  "  The  possession  of  a  human 
head  cannot  be  considered  as  a  proof  of  the  bravery  of  the 
owner  for  it  is  not  necessary  that  he  should  have  killed  the 
victim  with  his  own  hands,  his  friends  being  permitted  to 
assist  him  or  even  to  perform  the  act  themselves." 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  Dyaks1  are  not  in  other  respects 
a  fierce  and  diabolical  race,  but  are  at  home,  as  Doty  attests, 
"  mild,  gentle,  and  given  to  hospitality."  I  call  special  at- 
tention to  this  by  way  of  indirectly  answering  an  objection 
frequently  urged  against  my  theory  :  "  How  is  it  possible  to 
suppose  that  a  nation  so  highly  civilized  as  the  Greeks  of 
Plato's  time  should  have  known  love  for  women  only  in  its 
lower,  carnal  phases  ?  "  Well,  we  have  here  a  parallel  case. 
The  Dyaks  are  "  mild,  gentle,  and  hospitable,"  yet  their  chief 
delight  and  glory  is  murder  !  And  as  one  of  the  main  ob- 
jects of  this  book  is  to  dwell  on  the  various  obstacles  which 
impeded  the  growth  of  romantic  love,  it  will  be  interesting 

1  Roth's  sumptuous  volume,  British  North  Borneo,  gives  a  life-like  picture 
of  the  Dyaks  from  every  point  of  view,  with^numerous  illustrations. 


30       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE   AND   GROW 

to  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  causes  which  prevented  the 
Dyaks  from  recognizing  the  sanctity  of  life.  Superstition  is 
one  of  them  ;  they  believe  that  persons  killed  by  them  will 
be  their  slaves  in  the  next  world.  Pride  is  another.  "  How 
many  heads  did  your  father  get  ? "  a  Dyak  will  ask  ;  and  if 
the  number  given  is  less  than  his  own,,  the  other  will  say, 
"  Well,  then  you  have  no  occasion  to  be  proud."  A  man's 
rank  in  this  world  as  in  the  next  depends  on  the  number  of 
his  skulls  ;  hence  the  owner  of  a  large  number  may  be  dis- 
tinguished by  his  proud  bearing.  But  the  head  hunter's 
strangest  and  strongest  motive  is  the  desire  to  please  women  ! 
No  Dyak  maiden  would  condescend  to  marry  a  youth  who 
has  never  killed  a  man,  and  in  times  when  the  chances  for 
murder  were  few  and  far  between,  suitors  have  been  com- 
pelled to  wait  a  year  or  two  before  they  could  bag  a  skull  and 
lead  home  their  blushing  bride.  The  weird  details  of  this 
mode  of  courtship  will  be  given  in  the  chapter  on  Island 
Love  on  the  Pacific 


SLAUGHTER   OF  THE   INNOCENTS. 

In  all  these  cases  we  are  shocked  at  the  utter  absence  of  the 
sentiment  relating  to  the  sanctity  of  human  life.  But  our 
horror  at  this  fiendish  indifference  to  murder  is  doubled  when 
we  find  that  the  victims  are  not  strangers  but  members  of  the 
same  family.  I  must  defer  to  the  chapter  on  Sympathy  a 
brief  reference  to  the  savage  custom  of  slaughtering  sick  rela- 
tives and  aged  parents  ;  here  I  will  confine  myself  to  a  few 
words  regarding  the  maternal  sentiment.  The  love  of  a 
mother  for  her  offspring  is  by  many  philosophers  considered 
the  earliest  and  strongest  of  all  sympathetic  feelings  ;  a  feel- 
ing stronger  than  death.  If  we  can  find  a  wide-spread  failure 
of  this  powerful  instinct,  we  shall  have  one  more  reason  for 
not  assuming  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  sentiment  of  love 
must  have  been  always  present. 

In  Australian  families  it  has  been  the  universal  custom  to 
bring  up  only  a  few  children  in  each  family — usually  two 
boys  and  a  girl — the  others  being  destroyed  by  their  own 


SLAUGHTER   OF   THE    INNOCENTS  31 

parents,  with  no  more  compunction  than  we  show  in  drown- 
ing superfluous  puppies  or  kittens.  The  Kurnai  tribe  did 
not  kill  new-born  infants,  but  simply  left  them  behind. 
"  The  aboriginal  mind  does  not  seem  to  perceive  the  horrid 
idea  of  leaving  an  unfortunate  baby  to  die  miserably  in  a  de- 
serted camp  "  (Fison  and  Howitt,  14).  The  Indians  of  both 
North  and  South  America  were  addicted  to  the  practice  of 
infanticide.  Among  the  Arabs  the  custom  was  so  inveterate 
that  as  late  as  our  sixth  century,  Mohammed  felt  called  upon, 
in  various  parts  of  the  Koran,  to  discountenance  it.  In  the 
words  of  Professor  Robertson  Smith  (281)  "Mohammed, 
when  he  took  Mecca  and  received  the  homage  of  the  women 
in  the  most  advanced  centre  of  Arabian  civilization,  still 
deemed  it  necessary  formally  to  demand  from  them  a  promise 
not  to  commit  child-murder."  Among  the  wild  tribes  of 
India  there  are  some  who  cling  to  their  custom  of  infanti- 
cide with  the  tenacity  of  fanatics.  Dalton  (288-90)  relates 
that  with  the  Kandhs  this  custom  was  so  wide-spread  that  in 
1842  Major  Macpherson  reported  that  in  many  villages  not  a 
single  female  child  could  be  found.  The  British  Government 
rescued  a  number  of  girls  and  brought  them  up,  giving  them 
an  education.  Some  of  these  were  afterward  given  in  mar- 
riage to  respectable  Kandh  bachelors,  "  and  it  was  expected 
that  they  at  least  would  not  outrage  their  own  feeling  as 
mothers  by  consenting  to  the  destruction  of  their  offspring. 
Subsequently,  however,  Colonel  Campbell  ascertained  that 
these  ladies  had  no  female  children,  and,  on  being  closely 
questioned,  they  admitted  that  at  their  husbands'  bidding 
they  had  destroyed  them." 

In  the  South  Sea  Islands  "  not  less  than  two-thirds  of  the 
children  were  murdered  by  their  own  parents."  Ellis  (P.  R., 
I.,  196-202)  knew  parents  who  had,  by  their  own  confession, 
killed  four,  six,  eight,  even  ten  of  their  children,  and  the 
only  reason  they  gave  was  that  it  was  the  custom  of  the 
country.  "  No  sense  of  irresolution  or  horror  appeared  to 
exist  in  the  bosoms  of  those  parents,  who  deliberately  resolved 
on  the  deed  before  the  child  was  born."  "  The  murderous 
parents  often  came  to  their  (the  missionaries')  houses  almost 


32       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE   AND    GROW 

before  their  hands  were  cleansed  from  their  children's  blood, 
and  spoke  of  the  deed  with  worse  than  brutal  insensibility,  or 
with  vaunting  satisfaction  at  the  triumph  of  their  customs 
over  the  persuasions  of  their  teachers."  They  refused  to 
spare  babies  even  when  the  missionaries  offered  to  take  care 
of  them  (II.,  23).  Neither  Ellis,  during  a  residence  of  eight 
years,  nor  Nott  during  thirty  years'  residence  on  the  South 
Sea  Islands,  had  known  a  single  mother  who  was  not  guilty 
of  this  crime  of  infanticide.  Three  native  women  who  hap- 
pened to  be  together  in  a  room  one  day  confessed  that  be- 
tween them  they  had  killed  twenty-one  infants — nine,  seven, 
and  five  respectively. 

These  facts  have  long  been  familiar  to  students  of  anthro- 
pology, but  their  true  significance  has  been  obscured  by  the 
additional  information  that  many  tribes  addicted  to  infanti- 
cide, nevertheless  displayed  a  good  deal  of  "affection"  to- 
ward those  whom  they  spared.  A  closer  examination  of  the 
testimony  reveals,  however,  that  there  is  no  true  affection  in 
these  cases,  but  merely  a  shallow  fondness  for  the  little  ones, 
chiefly  for  the  sake  of  the  selfish  gratification  it  affords  the 
parents  to  watch  their  gambols  and  to  give  vent  to  in- 
herited animal  instincts.  True  affection  is  revealed  only  in 
self-sacrifice ;  but  the  disposition  to  sacrifice  themselves  for 
their  children  is  the  one  quality  most  lacking  in  these  child- 
murderers.  Sentimentalists,  with  their  usual  lack  of  insight 
and  logical  sense,  have  endeavored  to  excuse  these  assassins 
on  the  ground  that  necessity  compelled  them  to  destroy  their 
infants.  Their  arguments  have  misled  even  so  eminent  a 
specialist  as  Professor  E.  B.  Tylor  into  declaring  (Anthro- 
pology, 427)  that  "infanticide  comes  from  hardness  of  life 
rather  than  from  hardness  of  heart."  AVhat  he  means,  may 
be  made  clear  by  reference  to  the  case  of  the  Arabs  who,  liv- 
ing in  a  desert  country,  were  in  constant  dread  of  suffering 
from  scarcity  of  food ;  wherefore,  as  Robertson  Smith  re- 
marks (281),  "to  bury  a  daughter  was  regarded  not  only  as  a 
virtuous  but  as  a  generous  deed,  which  is  intelligible  if  the 
reason  was  that  there  would  be  fewer  mouths  to  fill  in  the 
tribe."  This  explains  the  murders  in  question  but  does  not 


SLAUGHTER   OF   THE   INNOCENTS  33 

show  them  to  be  excusable  ;  it  explains  them  as  being  due 
to  the  vicious  selfishness  and  hard-heartedness  of  parents  who 
would  rather  kill  their  infants  than  restrain  their  sexual 
appetite  when  they  had  all  the  children  they  could  provide 
for. 

In  most  cases  the  assassins  of  their  own  children  had  not 
even  as  much  semblance  of  an  excuse  as  the  Arabs.  Turner 
relates  (284)  that  in  the  New  Hebrides  the  women  had  to  do 
all  the  work,  and  as  it  was  supposed  that  they  could  not 
attend  to  more  than  two  or  three,  all  the  others  were  buried 
alive  ;  in  other  words  the  babes  were  murdered  to  save  trouble 
and  allow  the  men  to  live  in  indolence.  In  the  instances 
from  India  referred  to  above,  various  trivial  excuses  for  female 
infanticide  were  offered  :  that  it  would  save  the  expenses 
connected  with  the  marriage  rites  ;  that  it  was  cheaper  to 
buy  girls  than  to  bring  them  up,  or,  better  still,  to  steal  them 
from  other  tribes ;  that  male  births  are  increased  by  the  de- 
struction of  female  infants  ;  and  that  it  is  better  to  destroy 
girls  in  their  infancy  than  to  allow  them  to  grow  up  and  be- 
come causes  of  strife  afterward.  Among  the  Fijians,  says 
Williams  (154,  155),  there  is  in  infanticide  "  no  admixture 
of  anything  like  religious  feeling  or  fear,  but  merely  whim, 
expediency,  anger,  or  indolence."  Sometimes  the  general  idea 
of  woman's  inferiority  to  man  underlies  the  act.  They  will 
say  to  the  pleading  missionary  :  ' '  Why  should  she  live  ?  Will 
she  wield  a  club  ?  Will  she  poise  a  spear  ?  " 

But  it  was  among  the  women  of  Hawaii  that  the  motives  of 
infanticide  reached  their  climax  of  frivolity.  There  mothers 
killed  their  children  because  they  were  too  lazy  to  bring  them 
up  and  cook  for  them  ;  or  because  they  wished  to  preserve 
their  own  beauty,  or  were  unwilling  to  suffer  an  interruption 
in  their  licentious  amours  ;  or  because  they  liked  to  roam 
about  unburdened  by  babes  ;  and  sometimes  for  no  other 
reason  than  because  they  could  not  make  them  stop  crying. 
So  they  buried  them  alive  though  they  might  be  months  or 
even  years  old  (Ellis,  P.  R.,  IV.,  240). 

These  revelations  show  that  it  is  not  "  hardness  of  life  " 
but  "hardness  of  heart" — sensual,  selfish  indulgence — that 


34       HOW   SENTIMENTS   CHANGE   AND   GROW 

smothers  the  parental  instinct.  To  say  that  the  conduct  of 
such  parents  is  brutal,  would  be  a  great  injustice  to  brutes. 
No  species  of  animals,  however  low  in  the  scale  of  life,  has 
ever  been  known  to  habitually  kill  its  offspring.  In  their 
treatment  of  females  and  young  ones,  animals  are  indeed,  as 
a  rule,  far  superior  to  savages  and  barbarians.  I  emphasize 
this  point  because  several  of  my  critics  have  accused  me  of  a 
lack  of  knowledge  and  thought  and  logic  because  I  attributed 
some  of  the  elements  of  romantic  love  to  animals  and  denied 
them  to  primitive  human  beings.  But  there  is  no  inconsist- 
ency in  this.  We  shall  see  later  on  that  there  are  other  things 
in  which  animals  are  superior  not  only  to  savages  but  to  some 
civilized  peoples  as  high  in  the  scale  as  Hindoos. 

HONORABLE   POLYGAMY 

.  Turning  now  from  the  parental  to  the  conjugal  sphere  we 
shall  find  further  interesting  instances  showing  How  Senti- 
ments Change  and  Grow.  The  monogamous  sentiment — the 
feeling  that  a  man  and  his  wife  belong  to  each  other  exclu- 
sively— is  now  so  strong  that  a  person  who  commits  bigamy 
not  only  perpetrates  a  crime  for  which  the  courts  may  im- 
prison him  for  five  years,  but  becomes  a  social  outcast  with 
whom  respectable  people  will  have  nothing  more  to  do.  The 
Mormons  endeavored  to  make  polygamy  a  feature  of  their  re- 
ligion, but  in  1882  Congress  passed  a  law  suppressing  it  and 
punishing  offenders.  Did  this  monogamous  sentiment  exist 
"  always  and  everywhere  ?" 

Livingstone  relates  (M.  S.  A.,  L,  306-312)  that  the  King  of 
the  Beetjuans  (South  Africa)  was  surprised  to  hear  that  his 
visitor  had  only  one  wife  :  "  When  we  explained  to  him  that, 
by  the  laws  of  our  country,  people  could  not  marry  until  they 
were  of  a  mature  age,  and  then  could  never  have  more  than 
one  wife,  he  said  it  was  perfectly  incomprehensible  to  him 
how  a  whole  nation  could  submit  voluntarily  to  such  laws/' 
He  himself  had  five  wives  and  one  of  these  queens  "  remarked 
very  judiciously  that  such  laws  as  ours  would  not  suit  the 
Beetjuans  because  there  were  so  great  a  number  of  women 


HONORABLE   POLYGAMY  35 

and  the  male  population  suffered  such  diminutions  from  the 
wars."  Sir  Samuel  Baker  (A.  N.f  147)  says  of  the  wife  of 
the  Chief  of  Latooka  :  "  She  asked  many  questions,  how 
many  wives  I  had  ?  and  was  astonished  to  hear  that  I  was 
contented  with  one.  This  amused  her  immensely,  and  she 
laughed  heartily  with  her  daughter  at  the  idea."  In  Equa- 
torial Africa,  "if  a  man  marries  and  his  wife  thinks  that  he 
can  afford  another  spouse,  she  pesters  him  to  marry  again, 
and  calls  him  a  stingy  fellow  if  he  declines  to  do  so  "  (Reade, 
259).  Livingstone  (N.  E.  Z.,  284)  says  of  the  Makalolo 
women  :  "  On  hearing  that  a  man  in  England  could  marry 
but  one  wife,  several  ladies  exclaimed  that  they  would  not 
like  to  live  in  such  a  country ;  that  they  could  not  imagine 
how  English  ladies  could  relish  such  a  custom,  for,  in  their 
way  of  thinking,  every  man  of  respectability  should  have  a 
number  of  wives,  as  a  proof  of  his  wealth.  Similar  ideas  pre- 
vail all  down  the  Zambesi."  Some  amusing  instances  are  re- 
ported by  Burton  (T.  T.  G.  L.,  L,  36,  78,  79).  The  lord  of 
an  African  village  appeared  to  be  much  ashamed  because  he 
had  only  two  wives.  His  sole  excuse  was  that  he  was  only  a 
boy — about  twenty-two.  Regarding  the  Mpongwe  of  the 
Gaboon,  Burton  says :  "  Polygamy  is,  of  course,  the  order  of 
the  day ;  it  is  a  necessity  to  the  men,  and  even  the  women 
disdain  to  marry  a  '  one-wifer/  '  In  his  book  on  the  Kafirs 
of  the  Hindu-Kush,  G.  S.  Robertson  writes  : 

"It  is  considered  a  reproach  to  have  only  one  wife,  a  sign 
of  poverty  and  insignificance.  There  was  on  one  occasion  a 
heated  discussion  at  Kamdesh  concerning  the  best  plans  to 
be  adopted  to  prepare  for  an  expected  attack.  A  man  sitting 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  assembly  controverted  something  the 
priest  said.  Later  on  the  priest  turned  round  fiercely  and 
demanded  to  be  told  how  a  man  with  '  only  one  wife '  pre- 
sumed to  offer  an  opinion  at  all." 

His  religion  allowed  a  Mohammedan  to  take  four  legiti- 
mate wives,  while  their  prophet  himself  had  a  larger  num- 
ber. A  Hindoo  was  permitted  by  the  laws  of  Maim  to 
marry  four  women  if  he  belonged  to  the  highest  caste,  but  if 
he  was  of  the  lowest  caste  he  was  condemned  to  monogamy. 


36       HOW   SENTIMENTS   CHANGE   AND   GROW 

King  Solomon  was  held  in  honor  though  he  had  unnumbered 
wives,  concubines,  and  virgins  at  his  disposal. 

How  far  the  sentiment  of  monogamy — one  of  the  essential 
ingredients  of  Semantic  Love — had  penetrated  the  skulls  of 
American  Indians  may  be  inferred  from  the  amusing  and 
typical  details  related  by  the  historian  Parkman  (0.  T.,  chap, 
xi.)  of  the  Dakota  or  Sioux  Indians,  among  whom  he  sojourned. 
The  man  most  likely  to  become  the  next  chief  was  a  fellow 
named  Mahto-Tatonka,  whose  father  had  left  a  family  of 
thirty,  which  number  the  young  man  was  evidently  anxious 
to  beat : 

"  Though  he  appeared  not  more  than  twenty-one  years  old, 
he  had  oftener  struck  the  enemy,  and  stolen  more  horses  and 
more  squaws  than  any  young  man  in  the  village.  We  of  the 
civilized  world  are  not  apt  to  attach  much  credit  to  the  latter 
species  of  exploits ;  but  horse-stealing  is  well-known  as  an 
avenue  to  distinction  on  the  prairies,  and  the  other  kind  of 
depredation  is  esteemed  equally  meritorious.  Not  that  the 
act  can  confer  fame  from  its  own  intrinsic  merits.  Any  one 
can  steal  a  squaw,  and  if  he  chooses  afterward  to  make  an 
adequate  present  to  her  rightful  proprietor,  the  easy  husband 
for  the  most  part  rests  content ;  his  vengeance  falls  asleep, 
and  all  danger  from  that  quarter  is  averted.  Yet  this  is 
esteemed  but  a  pitiful  and  mean-spirited  transaction.  The 
danger  is  averted,  but  the  glory  of  the  achievement  also  is  lost. 
Mahto-Tatonka  proceeded  after  a  more  gallant  and  dashing 
fashion.  Out  of  several  dozen  squaws  whom  he  had  stolen,  he 
could  boast  that  he  had  never  paid  for  one,  but  snapping  his 
fingers  in  the  face  of  the  injured  husband,  had  defied  the  ex- 
tremity of  his  indignation,  and  no  one  had  yet  dared  to  lay 
the  hand  of  violence  upon  him.  He  was  following  close  in 
the  footsteps  of  his  father.  The  young  men  and  the  young 
squaws,  each  in  their  way,  admired  him.  The  one  would 
always  follow  him  to  war,  and  he  was  esteemed  to  have  an 
unrivalled  charm  in  the  eyes  of  the  other." 

Thus  the  admiration  of  the  men,  the  love  (Indian  style)  of 
the  women,  and  the  certainty  of  the  chieftainship — the  high- 
est honor  accessible  to  an  Indian — were  the  rewards  of  actions 
which  in  a  civilized  community  would  soon  bring  such  a 
"  brave  "  to  the  gallows.  Some  of  the  agencies  by  which  the 
belief  that  wife-stealing  and  polygamy  are  honorable  'was  dis- 


CURIOSITIES   OF   MODESTY  3? 

placed  by  the  modern  sentiment  in  favor  of  monogamy,  will 
be  considered  later  on.  Here  I  simply  wish  to  enforce  the 
additional  moral  that  not  only  the  ideas  regarding  bigamy  and 
polygamy  have  changed,  but  the  emotions  aroused  by  such 
actions ;  execration  having  taken  the  place  of  admiration. 
Judging  by  such  cases,  is  it  likely  that  ideas  concerning 
women  ajid  love  could  change  so  utterly  as  they  have  since  the 
dav.s  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  without  changing  the  emotions  of 
love  itself  ?  Sentiments  consist  of  ideas  and  eruptions.  If 
both  are  altered,  the  sentiments  must  have  changed  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  Let  us  take  as  a  further  example  the  senti- 
ment of  modesty. 

CURIOSITIES   OF   MODESTY 

There  are  many  Christian  women  who,  if  offered  the  choice 
between  death  and  walking  naked  down  the  street,  would 
choose  death  as  being  preferable  to  eternal  disgrace  and  social 
suicide.  If  they  preferred  the  other  alternative,  they  would 
be  arrested  and,  if  known  to  be  respectable,  sent  to  an  insane 
asylum.  The  English  legend  relates  that  "peeping  Tom" 
was  struck  blind  because  he  did  not  stay  in  the  house  as  com- 
manded when  the  good  Lady  Godiva  was  obliged  to  ride  naked 
through  the  market-place.  So  strong,  indeed,  is  the  senti- 
ment of  modesty  in  our  community  that  the  old-fashioned 
philosophers  used  to  maintain  it  was  an  innate  instinct,  always 
present  under  normal  conditions.  The  fact  that  every  child 
has  to  be  gradually  taught  to  avoid  indecent  exposure,  ought  to 
have  enlightened  these  philosophers  as  to  their  error,  which  is 
further  made  plain  to  the  orthodox  by  the  Biblical  story  that 
in  the  beginning  of  human  life  the  man  and  his  wife  were 
both  naked  and  not  ashamed. 

Naked  and  not  ashamed  is  the  condition  of  primitive  man 
wherever  climatic  and  other  motives  do  not  prescribe  dress. 
Writing  of  the  Arabs  at  Wat  El  Negur,  Samuel  Baker  says 
(N.  T.  A.,  265) : 

"  Numbers  of  young  girls  and  women  were  accustomed  to 
bathe  perfectly  naked  in  the  river  just  before  our  tent.  I 


38       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE   AND    GROW 

employed  them  to  catch  small  fish  for  bait ;  and  for  hours 
they  would  amuse  themselves  in  this  way,  screaming  with  ex- 
citement and  fun,  and  chasing  the  small  fry  with  their  long 
clothes  in  lieu  of  nets  ;  their  figures  were  generally  well- 
shaped.  .  .  .  The  men  were  constantly  bathing  in  the 
clear  waters  of  the  Athabara,  and  were  perfectly  naked,  al- 
though close  to  the  women  ;  we  soon  became  accustomed  to 
this  daily  scene,  as  we  do  at  Brighton  and  other  English 
bathing  towns." 

In  his  work  on  German  Africa  (II.,  123)  Zoller  says  that 
in  Togoland  "  the  young  girls  did  not  hesitate  in  the  least 
to  remove  their  only  article  of  clothing,  a  narrow  strip  of 
cloth,  rub  themselves  with  a  native  soap  and  then  take  a  dip 
in  the  lagoon,  before  the  eyes  of  white  men  as  well  as  black." 
A  page  would  be  required  merely  to  enumerate  the  tribes  in 
Africa,  Australia,  and  South  America  which  never  wear  any 
clothing. 

Max  Buchner  (352-4)  gives  a  graphic  description  (1878)  of 
the  nude  female  surf  swimmers  in  the  Hawaiian  Islands.  Nor 
is  this  indifference  to  nudity  manifested  only  by  these  primi- 
tive races.  In  Japan,  to  the  present  day,  men  and  women  bathe 
in  the  same  room,  separated  merely  by  a  partition,  two  or  three 
feet  high.1  Zoller  relates  of  the  Cholos  of  Ecuador  (P.  and  A., 
364)  that  ' '  men  and  women  bathe  together  in  the  rivers  with 
a  naivete  surpassing  that  of  the  South  Sea  Islanders."  A 
writer  in  the  Ausland  (1870,  p.  294)  reports  that  in  Para- 
guay he  saw  the  women  washing  their  only  dress,  and  while 
they  waited  for  the  sun  to  dry  it,  they  stood  by  naked  calmly 
smoking  their  cigars. 

But  natural  indifference  to  nudity  is  the  least  of  the  curi- 
osities of  modesty.  Sometimes  nakedness  is  actually  pre- 
scribed by  law  or  by  strict  etiquette.  In  Rohl  all  women  who 
are  not  Arabic  are  forbidden  to  wear  clothing  of  any  sort. 
The  King  of  Mandingo  allowed  no  women,  not  even  prin- 
cesses, to  approach  him  unless  they  were  naked  (Hellwald, 
77-8).  Dubois  (I.,  265)  says  that  in  some  of  the  southern 
provinces  of  India  the  women  of  certain  castes  must  uncover 
their  body  from  the  head  to  the  girdle  when  speaking  to  a 

1  See  the  chapter  on  Nudity  and  Bathing  in  my  Lotos-Time  in  Japan. 


CURIOSITIES   OF   MODESTY  39 

man  :  "  It  would  be  thought  a  want  of  politeness  and  good 
breeding  to  speak  to  men  with  that  part  of  the  body  clothed." 

In  his  travels  among  the  Cameroon  negroes  Zoller  (II.,  185) 
came  across  a  strange  bit  of  religious  etiquette  in  regard  to 
nudity.  The  women  there  wear  nothing  but  a  loin  cloth, 
except  in  case  of  a  death,  when,  like  ourselves,  they  appear 
all  in  black — with  a  startling  difference,  however.  One  day, 
writes  Zoller,  "I  was  astounded  to  see  a  number  of  women 
and  girls  strolling  about  stark  naked  before  the  house  of  a 
man  who  had  died  of  diphtheria.  This,  I  was  told,  was  their 
mourning  dress.  .  .  .  The  same  custom  prevails  in  other 
parts  of  West  Africa." 

Modesty  is  as  fickle  as  fashion  and  assumes  almost  as  many 
different  forms  as  dress  itself.  In  most  Australian  tribes  the 
women  (as  well  as  the  men)  go  naked,  yet  in  a  few  they  not 
only  wear  clothes  but  go  out  of  sight  to  bathe.  Stranger  still, 
the  Pele  islanders  were  so  innocent  of  all  idea  of  clothing  that 
when  they  first  saw  Europeans  they  believed  that  their  clothes 
were  their  skins.  Nevertheless,  the  men  and  women  bathed 
in  different  places.  Among  South  American  Indians  nudity 
is  the  rule,  whereas  some  North  American  Indians  used  to 
place  guards  near  the  swimming-places  of  the  women,  to  pro- 
tect them  from  spying  eyes. 

According  to  Gill  (230),  the  Papuans  of  Southwestern  New 
Guinea  "  glory  in  their  nudeness  and  consider  clothing  fit 
only  for  women."  There  are  many  places  where  the  women 
alone  were  clothed,  while  in  others  the  women  alone  were 
naked.  Mtesa,  the  King  of  Uganda,  who  died  in  1884,  in- 
flicted the  death  penalty  on  any  man  who  dared  to  approach 
him  without  having  every  inch  of  his  legs  carefully  covered  ; 
but  the  women  who  acted  as  his  servants  were  stark  naked 
(Hellwald,  78). 

While  the  etiquette  of  modesty  is  thus  subject  to  an  end- 
less variety  of  details,  every  nation  and  tribe  enforces  its  own 
ideal  of  propriety  as  the  only  correct  thing.  In  Tahiti  and 
Tonga  it  would  be  considered  highly  indecent  to  go  about 
without  being  tattooed.  Among  Samoans  and  other  Malay- 
ans the  claims  of  propriety  are  satisfied  if  only  the  navel  is 


40       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE    AND    GROW 

covered.  "  The  savage  tribes  of  Sumatra  and  Celebes  have  a 
like  feeling  about  the  knee,  which  is  always  carefully  cov- 
ered "  (Westermarck,  207).  In  China"  it  is  considered  ex- 
tremely indecent  if  a  woman  allows  her  bare  feet  to  be  seen, 
even  by  her  husband,  and  a  similar  idea  prevails  among  some 
Turkish  women,  who  carefully  wrap  up  their  feet  before  they 
go  to  bed  (Floss,  I.,  344).  Hindoo  women  must  not  show  their 
faces,  but  it  is  not  improper  to  wear  a  dress  so  gauzy  that  the 
whole  figure  is  revealed  through  it.  "  In  Moruland,"  says 
Emm  Bey,  "  the  women  mostly  go  about  absolutely  naked,  a 
few  only  attaching  a  leaf  behind  to  their  waistband.  It  is 
curious  to  note,  on  meeting  a  bevy  of  these  uncovered  beauties 
carrying  water,  that  the  first  thing  they  do  with  their  free 
hand  is  to  cover  the  face." 

These  customs  prevail  in  all  Moslem  countries.  Mariti  re- 
lates in  his  Viaygi  (II.,  283)  :  "Travelling  in  summer  across 
the  fields  of  Syria  I  repeatedly  came  across  groups  of  women, 
entirely  naked,  washing  themselves  near  a  well.  They  did 
not  move  from  the  place,  but  simply  covered  the  face  with 
one  hand,  their  whole  modesty  consisting  in  the  desire  not  to 
be  recognized.  " 

Sentimental  topsy-turviness  reaches  its  climax  in  those 
cases  where  women  who  usually  go  naked  are  ashamed  to  be 
seen  clothed.  Such  cases  are  cited  by  several  writers,1  and 
appear  to  be  quite  common.  The  most  amusing  instance  I 
have  come  across  is  in  a  little-known  volume  on  Venezuela  by 
Lavayasse,  who  writes  (190)  : 

"  It  is  known  that  those  [Indians]  of  the  warm  climates  of 
South  America,  among  whom  civilization  has  not  made  any 
progress,  have  no  other  dress  than  a  small  apron,  or  kind  of 
bandage,  to  hide  their  nakedness.  A  lady  of  my  acquaint- 
ance had  contracted  a  kindness  for  a  young  Paria  Indian 
woman,  who  was  extremely  handsome.  We  had  given  her 
the  name  of  Grace.  She  was  sixteen  years  old,  and  had  lately 
been  married  to  a  young  Indian  of  twenty-five,  who  was  our 
sportsman.  This  lady  took  a  pleasure  in  teaching  her  to  sew 
and  embroider.  We  said  to  her  one  day,  '  Grace,  you  are 
extremely  pretty,  speak  French  well,  and  are  always  with  us  : 

i  Bancroft,  IL,  75 ;  Wallace,  357  ;  Westermarck,  195 ;  Humboldt,  III.,  330. 


INDIFFERENCE   TO    CHASTITY  41 

you  ought  not  therefore  to  live  like  the  other  native  women, 
and  we  shall  give  you  some  clothes.  Does  not  your  husband 
\\car  trousers  and  a  shirt  ?"  Upon  this  she  consented  to  be 
dressed.  The  lady  lost  no  time  in  arranging  her  dress,  a 
ceremony  at  which  I  had  the  honor  of  assisting.  \Ve  put  on 
a  shift,  petticoats,  stockings,  shoes,  and  a  Madras  handker- 
chief on  her  head.  She  looked  quite  enchanting,  and  saw 
herself  in  the  looking-glass  with  great  complacency.  Sud- 
denly her  husband  returned  from  shooting,  with  three  or  four 
Indians,  when  the  whole  party  burst  into  a  loud  fit  of  laughter 
at  her,  and  began  to  joke  about  her  new  habiliments.  Grace 
was  quite  abashed,  blushed,  wept,  and  ran  to  hide  herself  in 
the  bed-chamber  of  the  lady,  Avhere  she  stript  herself  of  the 
clothes,  went  out  of  the  window,  and  returned  naked  into  the 
room.  A  proof  that  when  her  husband  saw  her  dressed  for 
the  first  time,  she  felt  a  sensation  somewhat  similar  to  that 
which  a  European  woman  might  experience  who  was  sur- 
prised without  her  usual  drapery." 

Another  paradox  remains  to  be  noted.  Anthropologists 
have  now  proved  beyond  all  possibility  of  doubt  that  modesty, 
far  from  having  led  to  the  use  of  clothing,  was  itself  merely 
a  secondary  consequence  of  the  gradual  adoption  of  apparel 
as  a  protection.  They  have  also  shown1  that  the  earliest 
forms  of  dress  were  extremely  scanty,  and  were  intended  not 
to  cover  certain  parts  of  the  body,  but  actually  and  wantonly 
to  call  attention  to  them,  while  in  other  cases  the  only  parts 
of  the  body  habitually  covered  were  such  as  we  should  con- 
sider it  no  special  impropriety  to  leave  uncovered.  But 
enough  has  been  said  to  demonstrate  what  we  started  out  to 
prove  :  that  the  strong  sentiment  of  modesty  in  our  commun- 
ity— so  strong  that  many  insist  it  must  be  part  and  parcel  of 
human  nature  (like  love  !) — has,  like  all  the  other  sentiments 
here  discussed,  grown  up  slowly  from  microscopic  beginnings. 

INDIFFERENCE   TO    CHASTITY 

Closely  connected  with  modesty,  and  yet  entirely  distinct 
from  it,  is  another  and  still  stronger  sentiment — the  regard  for 
chastity.  Many  an  American  officer  whose  brave  wife  accom- 

1  See  especially  the  ninth  chapter  of  Westennarck's  History  of  Human  Mar- 
riage, 186-201. 


42       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE    AND    GROW 

panied  him  in  a  frontier  war  has  been  asked  by  her  to  prom- 
ise that  he  would  shoot  her  with  his  own  revolver  rather  than 
let  her  fall  into  the  clutches  of  licentious  Indians.  Though 
deliberate  murder  is  punishable  by  death,  no  American  jury 
has  ever  convicted  a  man  for  slaying  the  seducer  of  his  wife, 
daughter,  or  sister.  Modern  law  punishes  rape  with  death, 
and  its  victim  is  held  to  have  suffered  a  fate  worse  than  death. 
The  brightest  of  all  jewels  in  a  bride's  crown  of  virtues  is 
chastity — a  jewel  without  which  all  the  others  lose  their 
value.  Yet  this  jewel  of  jewels  formerly  had  no  more  value 
than  a  pebble  in  a  brook-bed.  The  sentiment  in  behalf  of 
chastity  had  no  existence  for  ages,  and  for  a  long  time  after 
it  came  into  existence  chastity  was  known  not  as  a  virtue  but 
only  as  a  necessity,  inculcated  by  fear  of  punishment  or  loss 
of  worldly  advantages. 

In  support  of  this  statement  a  whole  volume  might  be 
written  ;  but  as  abundant  evidence  will  be  given  in  later 
chapters  relating  to  the  lower  races  in  Africa,  Australia, 
Polynesia,  America,  and  Asia,  only  a  few  instances  need  he 
cited  here.  In  his  recent  work  on  the  Origin  and  Growth  of 
the  Moral  Sense  (1898),  Alexander  Sutherland,  an  Australian 
author,  writes  (I.,  180) : 

"  In  the  House  of  Commons  papers  for  1844  will  be  found 
some  350  printed  pages  of  reports,  memoranda,  and  letters, 
gathered  by  the  standing  committee  appointed  in  regard  to 
the  treatment  of  aboriginals  in  the  Australian  colonies.  All 
these  have  the  same  unlovely  tale  to  tell  of  an  absolute  in- 
capacity to  form  even  a  rudimentary  notion  of  chastity.  One 
worthy  missionary,  who  had  been  for  some  years  settled 
among  tribes  of  New  South  Wales,  as  yet  brought  in  contact 
with  no  other  white  men,  writes  with  horror  of  what  he  had 
observed.  The  conduct  of  the  females,  even  young  children, 
is  most  painful ;  they  are  cradled  in  prostitution  and  fostered 
in  licentiousness.  Brough  Smith  (II.,  240)  quotes  several 
authorities  who  record  that  in  Western'Australia  the  women 
in  early  youth  were  almost  prostitutes.  '  For  about  six 
months  after  their  initiation  into  manhood  the  youths  were 
allowed  an  unbounded  licence,  and  there  was  no  possible 
blame  attached  to  the  young  unmarried  girl  who  entertained 
them"  (179). 


INDIFFERENCE   TO    CHASTITY  45 

"  Egede  informs  us  that  the  women  of  Greenland  thought 
themselves  fortunate  if  an  Angekokk,  or  prophet,  honored 
them  with  his  caresses  ;  and  some  husbands  even  paid  him, 
because  they  believed  that  the  child  of  such  a  holy  man  could 
not  but  be  happier  and  better  than  others."  (Westermarck, 
77,  80.) 

"In  Cumana  the  priests,  who  were  regarded  as  holy,  slept 
only  with  unmarried  women,  '  porque  tenian  por  honorosa  cos- 
tumbre  que  ellos  las  quitassen  la  virginidad/*  (Bastian,  K. 
A.  A.,  II.,  228.) 

From  this  lowest  depth  of  depravity  it  would  be  interesting,  if 
space  and  the  architectural  plan  of  this  volume  permitted,  to 
trace  the  growth  of  the  sentiment  which  demands  chastity ;  not- 
ing, in  the  first  place,  how  married  women  were  compelled,  by 
the  jealous  fury  of  their  masters,  to  practise  continence  ;  how, 
very  much  later,  virginity  began  to  be  valued,  not,  indeed,  at 
first,  as  a  virtue  having  a  value  and  charm  of  its  own,  but  as  a 
means  of  enhancing  the  market  value  of  brides.  Indifference 
to  masculine  chastity  continued  much  longer  still.  The  an- 
cient civilized  nations  had  advanced  far  enough  to  value 
purity  in  wives  and  maidens,  but  it  hardly  occurred  to  them 
that  it  was  man's  duty  to  cultivate  the  same  virtue.  Even  so 
austere  and  eminent  a  moral  philosopher  as  Cicero  declared 
that  one  would  have  to  be  very  severe  indeed  to  ask  young 
men  to  refrain  from  illicit  relations.  The  mediaeval  church 
fathers  endeavored  for  centuries  to  enforce  the  doctrine  that 
men  should  be  as  pure  as  women,  with  what  success,  every  one 
knows.  A  more  powerful  agency  in  effecting  a  reform  was 
the  loathsome  disease  which  in  the  fifteenth  century  began  to 
sweep  away  millions  of  licentious  men,  and  led  to  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  from  the  moral  point  of  view.  The  masculine 
standard  is  still  low,  but  immense  progress  has  been  made 
during  the  last  hundred  years.  The  number  of  prostitutes 
in  Europe  is  still  estimated  at  seven  hundred  thousand,  yet  that 
makes  only  seven  to  every  thousand  females,  and  though 
there  are  many  other  unchaste  women,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  in 
England  and  America,  at  any  rate,  more  than  nine  hundred 
out  of  every  thousand  females  are  chaste,  whereas  among  sav- 
ages, as  a  rule,  nearly  all  females  are  prostitutes  (in  the  moral 


46       HOW   SENTIMENTS   CHANGE   AND   GROW 

sense  of  the  word),  before  they  marry.  In  view  of  this  as- 
tounding progress  there  is  no  reason  to  despair  regarding 
man's  future.  It  would  be  a  great  triumph  of  civilization  if 
the  average  man  could  be  made  as  pure  as  the  average  woman. 
At  the  same  time,  since  the  consequences  of  sin  are  infinitely 
more  serious  in  women,,  it  is  eminently  proper  that  they 
should  be  in  the  van  of  moral  progress. 

Chastity,  modesty,  polygamy,  murder,  religion,  and  nature 
have  now  furnished  us  an  abundance  of  illustrations  showing  the 
changeableness  and  former  non-existence  of  sentiments  which 
in  us  are  so  strong  that  we  are  inclined  to  fancy  they  must 
have  been  the  same  always  and  everywhere.  Before  proceed- 
ing to  prove  that  romantic  love  is  another  sentiment  of 
which  the  same  may  be  said,  let  us  pause  a  moment  to  dis- 
cuss a  sentiment  which  presents  one  of  the  most  difficult 
problems  in  the  psychology  of  love,  the  Horror  of  Incest. 

HORROR   OF  INCEST 

A  young  man  does  not  fall  in  love  with  his  sister  though  she 
be  the  most  attractive  girl  he  knows.  Nor  does  her  father  fall 
in  love  with  her,  nor  the  mother  with  the  son,  or  the  son  with 
the  mother.  Not  only  is  there  no  sexual  love  between  them, 
but  the  very  idea  of  marriage  fills  their  mind  with  unutterable 
horror,  and  in  the  occasional  cases  where  such  a  marriage  is 
made  through  ignorance  of  the  relationship,  both  parties 
usually  commit  suicide,  though  they  are  guiltless  of  deliberate 
crime.  Here  we  have  the  most  striking  and  absolute  proof 
that  circumstances,  habits,  ideas,  laws,  customs,  can  and  do  ut- 
terly annihilate  sexual  love  in  millions  of  individuals.  Why 
then  should  it  be  so  unlikely  that  the  laws  and  customs  of  the 
ancient  Greeks,  for  instance,  with  their  ideas  about  women  and 
marriage,  should  have  prevented  the  growth  of  sentimental 
love  ?  Note  the  modesty  of  my  claim.  While  it  is  certain 
that  both  the  sensual  and  the  sentimental  sides  of  sexual  love 
are  stifled  by  the  horror  of  incest,  all  that  I  claim  in  regard 
to  ancient  and  primitive  races  is  that  the  sentimental  side  of 
love  was  smothered  by  unfavorable  circumstances  and  hindered 


HORROR   OF   INCEST  47 

in  growth  by  various  obstacles  which  will  be  described  later  on 
in  this  volume.  Surely  this  is  not  such  a  reckless  theory  as 
it  seemed  to  some  of  my  critics. 

Like  the  other  sentiments  discussed  in  this  chapter,  the 
horror  of  incest  has  been  found  to  be  absent  among  races  in 
various  stages  of  development.  Incestuous  unions  occurred 
among  Chippewas  and  other  American  Indians.  Of  the  Peru- 
vian Indians,  Garcilasso  de  la  Vega  says  that  some  cohabited 
with  their  sisters,  daughters,  or  mothers  ;  similar  facts  are  re- 
corded of  some  Brazilians,  Polynesians,  Africans,  and  wild 
tribes  of  India.  "  Among  the  Annamese,  according  to  a  mis- 
sionary who  has  lived  among  them  for  forty  years,  no  girl  who 
is  twelve  years  old  and  has  a  brother  is  a  virgin  "  (Wester- 
marck,  292).  Gypsies  allow  a  brother  to  marry  a  sister,  while 
among  the  Veddahs  of  Ceylon  the  marriage  of  a  man  with  his 
younger  sister  is  considered  the  proper  marriage.  In  the  Ind- 
ian Archipelago  and  elsewhere  there  are  tribes  who  permit 
marriage  between  parents  and  their  children.  The  legends  of 
India  and  Hindoo  theology  abound  in  allusions  to  incestuous 
unions,  and  a  nation's  mythology  reflects  its  own  customs. 
According  to  Strabo  the  ancient  Irish  married  their  mothers 
and  sisters.  Among  the  love-stories  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  as 
we  shall  see  later  on,  there  are  a  surprising  number  the  sub- 
ject of  which  is  incest,  indicating  that  that  crime  was  of  not 
jcurrence.  But  it  is  especially  by  royal  person- 
3t  has  been  practised.  In  ancient  Persia,  Parthia, 
id  other  countries  the  kings  married  their  own  sisters, 
as  cTuPthe  Incas  of  Peru,  for  political  reasons,  other  women 
being  regarded  as  too  low  in  rank  to  become  queens ;  and  the 
same  phenomenon  occurs  in  Hawaii,  Siam,  Burma,  Ceylon, 
Madagascar,  etc.  In  some  cases  incestuous  unions  for  kings 
and  priests  are  even  prescribed  by  religion.  At  the  licentious 
festivals  common  among  tribes  in  America,  Africa,  India,  and 
elsewhere,  incest  was  one  of  the  many  forms  of  bestiality  in- 
dulged in  ;  this  gives  it  a  wide  prevalence. 

Much  ingenuity  has  been  expended  in  attempts  to  account 
for  the  origin  of  the  horror  of  incest.  The  main  reason  why 
it  has  so  far  remained  more  or  less  of  a  mystery,  is  that  each 


48       HOW   SENTIMENTS    CHANGE   AND    GROW 

writer  advanced  a  single  cause,  which  he  pressed  into  service 
to  explain  all  the  facts,  the  result  being  confusion  and  con- 
tradiction. In  my  opinion  different  agencies  must  be  assumed 
In  different  cases.  When  we  find  among  Australians,  Amer- 
ican Indians  (and  even  the  Chinese),  customs,  enforced  by 
the  strongest  feelings,  forbidding  a  man  to  marry  a  woman  be- 
longing to  the  same  clan  or  having  the  same  surname,  though 
not  at  all  related,  while  allowing  a  marriage  with  a  sister  or 
other  near  blood  relative,  we  are  obviously  not  dealing  with  a 
question  of  incest  at  all,  but  with  some  of  the  foolish  taboos 
prevalent  among  these  races,  the  origin  of  which  they  them- 
selves have  forgotten.  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  probably  hit  the 
nail  on  the  head  when  he  said  (258)  in  regard  to  the  rule 
which  compels  savages  to  marry  only  outside  of  the  tribe, 
that  these  prohibitions  "  must  have  arisen  in  a  stage  of  cult- 
ure when  ideas  of  kindred  were  confused,  included  kinship 
with  animals  and  plants,  and  were  to  us  almost,  if  not  quite, 
unintelligible."  To  speak  of  instinct  and  natural  selection 
teaching  the  Veddahs  to  abhor  marriage  with  an  elder  sister 
while  making  union  with  a  younger  sister  the  proper  marriage 
(Westermarck,  292)  is  surely  to  assume  that  instinct  and  natu- 
ral selection  act  in  an  asinine  way,  which  they  never  do — ex- 
cept in  asses. 

In  a  second  class  of  cases,  where  lower  races  h^ye  ideas 
similar  to  ours,  I  believe  that  the  origin  of  doi 
must  be  sought  in  utilitarian  practices.  In  th( 
of  marriage,  girls  are  usually  bought  of  their  pal 
profit  by  the  sale  or  barter.  Now  when  a  man  marries^  girl 
to  be  his  wife  and  maid  of  all  work,  he  does  not  want  to  take 
her  to  his  home  hampered  by  a  bevy  of  young  children. 
Fathers  guilty  of  incestuous  practices  would  therefore  be  un- 
able to  dispose  of  their  daughters  to  advantage,  and  thus  a 
prejudice  in  favor  of  domestic  purity  would  gradually  arise 
which  a  shrewd  medicine  man  would  some  day  raise  to  the 
rank  of  a  religious  or  social  taboo. 

As  regards  modern  society,  Darwin,  Brinton,  Hellwald, 
Bentham,  and  others  have  advocated  or  endorsed  the  view 
that  the  reason  why  such  a  horror  of  incestuous  unions 


HORROR   OF   INCEST  49 

prevails,  is  that  novelty  is  the  chief  stimulus  to  the  sexual 
feelings,  and  that  the  familiarity  of  the  same  household  breeds 
indifference.  I  do  not  understand  how  any  thinker  can  have 
held  such  a  view  for  one  moment.  When  Bentham  wrote 
(Theory  of  Legislation,  pt.  iii.,  chap.  V.)  that  "individuals 
accustomed  to  see  each  other  from  an  age  which  is  capable 
neither  of  conceiving  desire  nor  of  inspiring  it,  will  see  each 
other  with  the  same  eyes  to  the  end  of  life,"  he  showed  infi- 
nitely less  knowledge  of  human  nature  than  the  author  of 
Paul  and  Virginia,  who  makes  a  boy  and  a  girl  grow  up 
almost  like  brother  and  sister,  and  at  the  proper  time  fall 
violently  in  love  with  one  another.  Who  cannot  recall  in  his 
own  experience  love  marriages  of  schoolmates  or  of  cousins 
living  in  intimate  association  from  their  childhood  ?  To  say 
that  such  bringing  up  together  creates  "  indifference"  is  ob- 
viously incorrect ;  to  say  that  it  leads  to  "  aversion  "  is  alto- 
gether unwarranted  ;  and  to  trace  to  it  such  a  feeling  as  our 
horror  at  the  thought  of  marrying  a  sister,  or  mother,  is  sim- 
ply preposterous. 

The  real  source  of  the  horror  of  incest  in  civilized  commu- 
nities was  indicated  more  than  two  thousand  years  ago  by 
Plato.  He  believed  that  the  reason  why  incestuous  unions 
were  avoided  and  abhorred,  was  to  be  found  in  the  constant 
inculcation,  at  home  and  in  literature,  that 

unholy,  hated  of  God,  and  most  infamous. 
yone  from  his  earliest  childhood  has  heard  men 
the  same  manner  about  them  always  and  every- 
er  in  comedy  or  in  the  graver  language  of  tragedy. 
When  the  poet  introduces  on  the  stage  a  Thyestes  or  an  (Edi- 
pus,  or  a  Macareus  having  secret  intercourse  with  his  sister, 
he  represents  him,  when  found  out,  ready  to  kill  himself  as 
the  penalty  of  his  sin."  (Laws,  VIII.,  838.) 

Long  before  Plato  another  great  "  medicine  man,"  Moses, 
saw  the  necessity  of  enforcing  a  "  taboo  "  against  incest  by 
the  enactment  of  special  severe  laws  relating  to  intercourse 
between  relatives  ;  and  that  there  was  no  "  instinct"  against 
incest  in  his  time  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  deemed 
it  necessary  to  make  such  circumstantial  laws  for  his  own 


50       HOW    SENTIMENTS    CHANGE   AND   GROW 

people,  and  by  his  specific  testimony  that  "  in  all  these  things 
the  nations  are  defiled  which  I  cast  out  from  before  you,  and 
the  land  is  defiled."  Regarding  his  motives  in  making  such 
laws,  Milman  has  justly  remarked  (H.  /.,  I.,  220),  "The 
leading  principle  of  these  enactments  was  to  prohibit  near 
marriage  between  those  parties  among  whom,  by  the  usage  of 
their  society,  early  and  frequent  intimacy  was  unavoidable 
and  might  lead  to  abuse."  If  Moses  lived  now,  he  would 
still  be  called  upon  to  enact  his  laws  ;  for  to  this  day  the 
horror  of  incest  is  a  sentiment  which  it  is  necessary  to  keep 
up  and  enforce  by  education,  moral  precept,  religion,  and 
law.  It  is  no  more  innate  or  instinctive  than  the  sentiment 
of  modesty,  the  regard  for  chastity,  or  the  disapproval  of 
bigamy.  Children  are  not  born  with  it  any  more  than  with 
the  feeling  that  it  is  improper  to  be  seen  naked.  Medical 
writers  bear  witness  to  the  wide  prevalence  of  unnatural 
practices  among  children,  even  in  good  families,  while  in  the 
slums  of  the  large  cities,  where  the  families  are  herded  like 
swine,  there  is  a  horrible  indulgence  in  every  kind  of  incest 
by  adults  as  well  as  children. 

Absolute  proof  that  the  horror  of  incest  is  not  innate  lies 
furthermore  in  the  unquestionable  fact  that  a  man  can  escape 
the  calamity  of  falling  in  love  with  his  sister  or  daughter 
only  if  he  knows  the  relationship.  There  are  many  instances 
on  record — to  which  the  daily  press  adds  othei 

uous  unions  brought  about  by  ignorance  of  the  

(Edipus  was  not  saved  by  an  instinct  from   maii  hi 

mother.  It  was  only  after  the  discovery  of  the  relatTo^nip 
that  his  mind  was  filled  with  unutterable  horror,  while  his 
wife  and  mother  committed  suicide.  This  case,  though  leg- 
endary, is  typical — a  mirror  of  actuality  —  showing  how 
potent  ideas  are  to  alter  emotions.  Yet  I  am  assailed  for 
asserting  that  the  Greeks  and  the  lower  races,  whose  ideas 
regarding  women,  love,  polygamy,  chastity,  and  marriage 
were  so  different  from  ours,  also  differed  from  us  in  their 
feelings — the  quality  of  their  love.  There  were  numerous 
obstacles  to  overcome  before  romantic  love  was  able  to 
emerge — obstacles  so  serious  and  diverse  that  it  is  a  wonder 


HORROR   OF   INCEST  51 

they  were  ever  conquered.  But  before  considering  those  ob- 
stacles it  will  be  advisable  to  explain  definitely  just  what 
romantic  love  is  and  how  it  differs  from  the  sensual  "  love  " 
or  lust  which,  of  course,  has  always  existed  among  men  as 
among  other  animals. 


WHAT  IS  KOMAOTIC  LOVE? 

How  does  it  feel  to  be  in  love  ? 

When  a  man  loves  a  girl,  he  feels  such  an  overwhelming 
individual  preference  for  her  that  though  she  were  a  beggar- 
maid  he  would  scorn  the  offer  to  exchange  her  for  an  heiress, 
a  princess,  or  the  goddess  of  beauty  herself.  To  him  she 
seems  to  have  a  monopoly  of  all  the  feminine  charms,  and 
she  therefore  monopolizes  his  thoughts  and  feelings  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  interests,  and  he  longs  not  only  for  her 
reciprocal  affection  but  for  a  monopoly  of  it.  "Does  she 
love  me  ?  "  he  asks  himself  a  hundred  times  a  day.  "  Some- 
times she  seems  to  treat  me  with  cold  indifference — is  that 
merely  the  instinctive  assertion  of  feminine  coyness,  or  does 
she  prefer  another  man  ?  "  The  pangs,  the  agony  of  jealousy 
overcome  him  at  this  thought.  He  hopes  one  moment,  de- 
spairs the  next, v  till  his  moods  become  so  mixed  that  lie 
hardly  knows  whether  he  is  happy  or  miserable.  He,  who 
is  usually  so  bold  and  self-confident,  is  humbled ;  feels  ut- 
terly unworthy  of  her.  In  his  fancy  she  soars  so  far  above 
all  other  women  that  calling  her  an  angel  seems  not  a 
hyperbole,  but  a  compliment  to  the  angel.  Toward  such 
a  superior  being  the  only  proper  attitude  is  adoration.  She 
is  spotless  as  an  angel,  and  his  feelings  toward  her  are  as  pure, 
as  free  from  coarse  cravings,  as  if  she  were  a  goddess.  How 
royally  proud  a  man  must  feel  at  the  thought  of  being,  pre- 
ferred above  all  mortals  by  this  divine  being !  In  personal 
beauty  had  she  ever  a  peer  ?  Since  Venus  left  this  planet, 
has  such  grace  been  seen  ?  In  face  of  her,  the  strongest  of 
all  impulses — selfishness — is  annihilated.  The  lover  is  no 
longer  ."  number  one "  to  himself  ;  his  own  pleasures  and 
comforts  are  ignored  in  the  eager  desire  to  please  her,  to 
show  her  gallant  attentions.  To  save  her  from  disaster  or 

52 


INGREDIENTS   OF   LOVE  53 

grief  he  is  ready  to  s(«-n'ji<r  his  life.  His  cordial  sympathy 
makes  him  share  all  her  joys  and  sorrows,  and  his  affBction 
for  her,  though  he  may  have  known  her  only  a  few  days — 
nay,  a  few  minutes — is  as  strong  and  devoted  as  that  of  a 
mother  for  the  child  that  is  her  own  flesh  and  blood. 


i  N  < .  1 :  V.  I  "  K  N  TS   OF   LOVE 

No  one  who  has  ever  been  truly  in  love  will  'deny  that  this 
description,  however  romantic  it  may  seem  in  its  apparent  ex- 
aggeration, is  a  realistic  reflection  of  his  feelings  and  impulses. 
As  this  brief  review  shows,  Individual  Preference,  Monopol- 
ism, Coyness,  Jealousy,  Mixed  Moods  of  Hope  and  Despair, 
Hyperbole,  Adoration,  Purity,  Pride,  Admiration  of  Personal 
Beauty,  Gallantry,  Self-sacrifice,  Sympathy,  and  Affection, 
are  the  essential  ingredients  in  that  very  composite  mental 
state  which  we  call  romantic  love.  Coyness,  of  course,  oc- 
curs only  in  feminine  love,  and  there  are  other  sexual  differ- 
ences which  will  be  noted  later  on.  Here  I  wish  to  point  out 
that  the  fourteen  ingredients  named  may  be  divided  into  two 
groups  of  seven  each — the  egoistic  and  the  altruistic.  The 
prevailing  notion  that  love  is  a  species  of  selfishness — a 
"  double  selfishness,"  some  wiseacre  has  called  it — is  deplor- 
ably untrue  and  shows  how  little  the  psychology  of  love  has 
heretofore  been  understood. 

It  has  indeed  an  egoistic  side,  including  the  ingredients 
I  have  called  Individual  Preference,  Monopolism,  Jealousy, 
Coyness,  Hyperbole,  Mixed  Moods,  and  Pride  ;  and  it  is  not 
a  mere  accident  that  these  are  also  the  seven  features  which 
may  be  found  in  sensual  love  too  ;  for  sensuality  and  selfish- 
ness are  twins.  But  the  later  and  more  essential  character- 
istics of  romantic  love  are  the  altruistic  and  supersensual 
traits — Sympathy,  Affection,  Gallantry,  Self-sacrifice,  Adora- 
tion, Purity,  and  Admiration  of  Personal  Beauty.  The  two 
divisions  overlap  in  some  places,  but  in  the  main  they  are 
accurate.  It  is  certain  that  the  first  group  precedes  the 
second,  but  the  order  in  which  the  ingredients  in  each  group 
first  made  their  appearance  cannot  be  indicated,  as  we  know 


54     ROMANTIC  LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

too  little  of  the  early  history  of  man.  The  arrangement  here 
adopted  is  therefore  more  or  less  arbitrary.  I  shall  try  in  this 
long  chapter  to  answer  the  question  "What  is  Romantic 
Love  ? "  by  discussing  each  of  its  fourteen  ingredients  and 
tracing  its  evolution  separately. 


I.     INDIVIDUAL   PREFERENCE 

If  a  man  pretended  to  be  in  love  with  a  girl  while  confess- 
.  ing  that  he  liked  other  girls  equally  well  and  would  as  soon 
marry  one  as  another,  everybody  would  laugh  at  him  ;  for 
however  ignorant  many  persons  may  be  as  to  the  subtler  traits 
of  sentimental  love,  it  is  known  universally  that  a  decided 
and  obstinate  preference  for  one  particular  individual  is  an 
absolute  condition  of  true  love. 

ALL   GIRLS   EQUALLY    ATTRACTIVE 

As  I  have  just  intimated,  a  modern  romantic  lover  would 
not  .exchange  a  beloved  beggar-maid  for  an  heiress  or  prin- 
cess ;  nor  would  he  give  her  for  a  dozen  other  girls,  however 
charming,  and  with  permission  to  marry  them  all.  Now  if 
romantic  love  had  always  existed,  the  lower  races  would 
have  the  same  violent  and  exclusive  preference  for  individ- 
uals. But  what  are  the  facts  ?  I  assert,  without  fear  of  con- 
tradiction from  any  one  familiar  with  anthropological  litera- 
ture, that  a  savage  or  barbarian,  be  he  Australian,  African, 
American,  or  Asiatic,  would  laugh  at  the  idea  of  refusing  to 
exchange  one  woman  for  a  dozen  others  equally  young  and 
attractive.  It  is  not  necessary  to  descend  to  the  lowest  sav- 
ages to  find  corroboration  of  this  view.  Dr.  Zoller,  an  un- 
usually intelligent  and  trustworthy  observer,  says,  in  one  of 
his  volumes  on  German  Africa  (III.,  70-71),  that  "  on  the 
whole  no  distinction  whatever  is  made  between  woman  and 
woman,  between  the  good-looking  and  the  ugly,  the  intelli- 
gent and  the  stupid  ones.  In  all  my  African  experiences  I 
have  never  heard  of  a  single  young  man  or  woman  who  con- 
ceived a  violent  passion  for  a  particular  individual  of  the 


ALL    GIRLS    EQUALLY    ATTRACTIVE  55 

opposite  sex."  So  in  other  parts  of  Africa.  The  natives  of 
Borgou,  we  are  told  by  R.  and  J.  Lander,  marry  with  perfect 
indifference.  "  A  man  takes  no  more  thought  about  choosing 
a  wife  than  he  does  in  picking  a  head  of  wheat."  Among 
the  Kaffirs,  says  Fritsch  (112)  it  may  occur  that  a  man  has  an 
inclination  toward  a  particular  girl  ;  but  he  adds  that  "  in 
such  cases  the  suitor  is  obliged  to  pay  several  oxen  more  than 
is  customary,  and  as  he  usually  takes  cattle  more  to  heart 
than  women,  such  cases  are  rare  ;  "  and  though,  when  he  has 
several  wives,  he  may  have  a  favorite,  the  attachment  to  her 
is  shallow  and  transient,  for  she  is  at  any  moment  liable  to 
displacement  by  a  new-comer.  Among  the  Hottentots  at 
Angra  Pequena,  when  a  man  covets  a  girl  he  goes  to  her  hut, 
prepares  a  cup  of  coffee  and  hands  it  to  her  without  saying  a 
word.  If  she  drinks  half  of  it,  he  knows  the  answer  is  Yes. 
"  If  she  refuses  to  touch  the  coffee,  the  suitor  is  not  specially 
grieved,  but  proceeds  to  another  hut  to  try  his  luck  again  in 
the  same  way."  (Ploss,  I.,  454.) 

Of  the  Fijians  Williams  (148)  says  :  "  Too  commonly  there 
is  no  express  feeling  of  connubial  bliss,  men  speak  of -'our 
women '  and  women  of  '  our  men '  without  any  distinctive 
preference  being  apparent."  Catlin,  speaking  (70-71)  of  the 
matrimonial  arrangements  of  the  Pawnee  Indians,  says  that 
daughters  are  held  as  legitimate  merchandise,  and,  as  a  rule, 
accept  the  situation  "  with  the  apathy  of  the  race."  A  man 
who  advertised  for  a  wife  would  hardly  be  accused  of  indi- 
vidual preference  or  anything  else  indicating  love.  From  a 
remark  made  by  George  Gibbs  (197)  we  may  infer  that  the 
Indians  of  Oregon  and  Washington  used  to  advertise  for  wives, 
in  their  own  fashion  :  "  It  is  not  unusual  to  find  on  the  small 
prairies  human  figures  rudely  carved  upon  trees.  These  I 
have  understood  to  have  been  cut  by  young  men  who  were  in 
want  of  wives,  as  a  sort  of  practical  intimation  that  they  w«re 
in  the  market  as  purchasers."  It  might  be  suggested  that  such 
a  crude  love-letter  to  the  sex  in  general,  as  compared  with  one 
of  our  own  love-letters  to  a  particular  girl,  gives  a  fair  idea  of 
what  Indian  love  is,  compared  with  the  love  of  civilized  men 
and  women. 


56     ROMANTIC  LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 


SHALLOW  PREDILECTION 

Even  where  there  is  an  appearance  of  predilection  it  is 
apt  to  be  shallow  and  fragile.  In  the  Jesuit  Relations 
(XVIII.,  129)  we  read  how  a  Huron  youth  came  to  one  of  the 
missionaries  and  said  he  needed  a  wife  to  make  his  snow-shoes 
and  clothes.  "  I  am  in  love  with  a  young  girl,"  said  he.  "  I 
beg  you  to  call  my  relatives  together  and  to  consider  whether 
she  is  suitable  for  me.  If  you  decide  that  it  is  for  my  good, 
I  will  marry  her ;  if  not,  I  will  follow  your  advice."  Other 
young  Indians  used  to  come  to  the  missionaries  to  ask  them 
to  find  wives  for  them.  I  have  been  struck,  in  reading  Indian 
love-stories,  by  the  fact  that  their  gist  usually  lies  not  in  an 
exhibition  of  decided  preference  for  one  man  but  of  violent 
aversion  to  another — some  old  and  disagreeable  suitor.  It  is 
well  known,  too,  that  among  Indians,  as  among  Australians, 
marriage  was  sometimes  considered  an  affair  of  the  tribe 
rather  than  of  the  individual ;  and  we  have  some  curious 
illustrations  of  the  way  in  which  various  tribes  of  Indians 
would  try  to  crush  the  germs  of  individual  preference. 


REPRESSION   OF   PREFERENCE 

Thus  Hunter  relates  (243)  of  the  Missouri  and  Arkansas 
tribes  that  "  It  is  considered  disgraceful  for  a  young  Indian 
publicly  to  prefer  one  woman  to  another  until  he  has  distin- 
guished himself  either  in  war  or  in  the  chase."  Should  an 
Indian  pay  any  girl,  though  he  may  have  known  her  from 
childhood,  special  attention  before  he  has  won  reputation  as 
a  warrior,  "  he  would  be  sure  to  suffer  the  painful  mortifi- 
cation of  a  rejection  ;  he  would  become  the  derision  of  the 
warriors  and  the  contempt  of  the  squaws."  In  the  Jesuit 
Relations  (III.,  73)  we  read  of  some  of  the  Canadian  Indians 
that  "  they  have  a  very  rude  way  of  making  love  ;  for  the 
suitor,  as  soon  as  he  shows  a  preference  for  a  girl,  does  not 
dare  look  at  her,  nor  speak  to  her,  nor  stay  near  her  unless 
accidentally ;  and  then  he  must  force  himself  not  to  look  her 


UTILITY   VERSUS   SENTIMENT  57 

in  the  face,  nor  to  give  any  sign  of  his  passion,  otherwise  he 
would  be  the  laughing-stock  of  all,  and  his  sweetheart  would 
blush  for  him."  Not  only  must  he  show  no  preference,  but 
the  choice,  too,  is  not  left  to  him ;  for  the  relatives  take  up 
the  matter  and  decide  whether  his  age,  skill  as  a  hunter,  rep- 
utation, and  family  make  him  a  desirable  match. 

In  the  face  of  such  facts,  can  we  agree  with  Rousseau  that 
to  a  savage  one  woman  is  as  good  as  another  ?  The  question 
is  very  difficult  to  answer,  because  if  a  man  is  to  marry  at  all, 
he  must  choose  a  particular  girl,  and  tliis  choice  can  be  inter- 
preted as  preference,  though  it  may  be  quite  accidental.  It 
is  probable,  as  I  have  suggested,  that  with  a  people  as  low  as 
the  Australians  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  man  having 
sufficient  predilection  for  one  young  woman  to  refuse  to  ex- 
change her  for  two  others.  Probably  the  same  is  true  of  the 
higher  savages  and  even  of  the  barbarians,  as  a  rule. 

UTILITY    VERSUS    SENTIMENT 

We  do,  indeed,  find,  at  a  comparatively  early  stage,  evi- 
dences of  one  girl  or  man  being  choaen  in  preference  to 
others  ;  but  when  we  examine  these  cases  closely  we  see  that 
the  choice  is  not  based  on  personal  qualities  but  on  utilita- 
rian considerations  of  the  most  selfish  or  sensual  description. 
Thus  Zoller,  in  the  passage  just  referred  to,  says  of  the  negro  : 
"It  is  true  that  when  he  buys  a  woman  he  prefers  a  young 
one,  but  his  motive  for  so  doing  is  far  from  being  mental  ad- 
miration of  beauty.  He  buys  the  younger  ones  because  they 
are  youthful,  strong,  and  able  to  work  for  him."  Similarly 
Belden,  who  lived  twelve  years  among  the  Plains  Indians, 
states  (302)  that  "  the  squaws  are  valued  by  the  middle-aged 
men  only  for  their  strength  and  ability  to  work,  and  no  ac- 
count whatever  4s  taken  of  their  personal  beauty."  The  girls 
are  no  better  than  the  men.  Young  Comanche  girls,  says 
Parker  (Schoolcraft,  V.,  683)  "are  not  averse  to  marry  very 
old  men,  particularly  if  they  are  chiefs,  as  they  are  always 
sure  of  something  to  eat."  In  describing  Amazon  Valley 
Indians,  Wallace  says  (497-498)  that  there  is  "a  trial  of  skill 


58     ROMANTIC  LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

at  shooting  with  the  bow  and  arrow,  and  if  the  young  man 
does  not  show  himself  a  good  marksman,  the  girl  refuses  him, 
on  the  ground  that  he  will  not  be  able  to  shoot  fish  and  game 
enough  for  the  family." 

These  cases  are  typical,  and  might  be  multiplied  indefi- 
nitely ;  they  show  how  utterly  individual  preference  on  per- 
sonal grounds  is  out  of  the  question  here.  It  is  true  that 
many  of  our  own  girls  marry  for  such  utilitarian  reasons  ; 
but  no  one  would  be  so  foolish  as  to  speak  of  these  marriages 
as  love-matches,  whereas  in  the  cases  of  savages  we  are  often 
invited  by  sentimentalists  to  witness  the  "  manifestation  of 
love  "  whenever  a  man  shows  a  utilitarian  or  sensual  interest 
in  a  particular  girl.  A  modern  civilized  lover  marries  a  girl 
for  her  own  sake,  because  he  is  enamoured  of  her  individuality, 
whereas  the  uncivilized  suitor  cares  not  a  fig  for  the  other's 
individuality ;  he  takes  her  as  an  instrument  of  lust,  a  drudge, 
or  as  a  means  of  raising  a  family,  in  order  that  the  supersti- 
tious rites  of  ancestor-worship  may  be  kept  up  and  his  selfish 
soul  rest  in  peace  in  the  next  world.  He  cares  not  for  her 
personally,  for  if  she  proves  barren  he  repudiates  her  and 
marries  another.  Trial  marriages  are  therefore  widely  prev- 
alent. The  Dyaks  of  Borneo,  as  St.  John  tells  us,  often 
make  as  many  as  seven  or  eight  such  marriages  ;  with  them 
marriage  is  "  a  business  of  partnership  for  the  purpose  of 
having  children,  dividing  labor,  and  by  means  of  their  off- 
spring providing  for  their  old  age." 


A   STORY   OF  AFRICAN   LOVE 

An  amusing  incident  related  by  Ernst  von  Weber  (II.,  215-6) 
indicates  how  easily  utilitarian  considerations  override  such 
skin-deep  preference  as  may  exist  among  Af  ricanso  He  knew 
a  girl  named  Yanniki  who  refused  to  marry  a  young  Kaffir 
suitor  though  she  confessed  that  she  liked  him.  "I  cannot 
take  him,"  she  said,  "as  he  can  offer  only  ten  cows  for  me 
and  my  father  wants  fifteen."  Weber  observed  that  it  was 
not  kind  of  her  father  to  let  a  few  cows  stand  in  the  way  of 
her  happiness  ;  but  the  African  damsel  did  not  fall  in  with 


SIMILARITY    OF    INDIVIDUALS   AND    SEXES      59 

his  sentimental  view  of  the  case.  Business  and  vanity  were 
to  her  much  more  important  matters  than  individual  prefer- 
ence for  a  particular  lover,  and  she  exclaimed,  excitedly  : 
"What!  You  expect  my  father  to  give  me  away  for  ten 
cows  ?  That  would  be  a  fine  sort  of  a  bargain  !  Am  I  not  worth 
more  than  Cilli,  for  whom  the  Tambuki  chief  paid  twelve  cows 
last  week  ?  I  am  pretty,  I  can  cook,  sew,  crochet,  speak 
English,  and  with  all  these  accomplishments  you  want  my 
father  to  dispose  of  me  for  ten  miserable  cows  ?  Oh,  sir,  how 
little  you  esteem  me  !  No,  no,  my  father  is  quite  right  in  re- 
fusing to  yield  in  this  matter  ;  indeed,  in  my  opinion  he 
might  boldly  ask  thirty  cows  for  me,  for  I  am  worth  that 
much." 

SIMILARITY   OF    INDIVIDUALS    AND   SEXES 

It  is  not  difficult  to  explain  why  among  the  lower  races  in- 
dividual preference  either  does  not  occur  at  all  or  is  so  weak 
and  utilitarian  that  the  difference  of  a  few  cows  more  or  less 
may  decide  a  lover's  fate.  Like  sunflowers  in  the  same 
garden,  the  girls  in  a  tribe  differ  so  little  from  one  an- 
other that  there  is  no  particular  cause  for  discrimination. 
They  are  all  brought  up  in  exactly  the  same  way,  eat  the 
same  food,  think  the  same  thoughts,  do  the  same  work  — 
carrying  water  and  wood,  dressing  skins,  moving  tents  and 
utensils,  etc.  ;  they  are  alike  uneducated,  and  marry  at  the 
same  childish  age  before  their  minds  can  have  unfolded  what 
little  is  in  them  ;  so  that  there  is  small  reason  why  a  man 
should  covet  one  of  them  much  more  than  another.  A  sav- 
age may  be  as  eager  to  possess  a  woman  as  a  miser  is  to  own 
a  gold  piece :  but  he  has  little  more  reason  to  prefer  one  girl 
to  another  than  a  miser  has  to  prefer  one  gold  piece  to  an- 
other of  the  same  size. 

Humboldt  observed  (P.  E.,  141)  that  "in  barbarous  nations 
there  is  a  physiognomy  peculiar  to  the  tribe  or  horde  rather 
than  to  any  individual."  It  has  been  noted  by  various  ob- 
servers that  the  lower  the  race  is  the  more  do  its  individuals 
thus  resemble  one  another.  Nay,  this  approximation  goes  so 
far  as  to  make  even  the  two  sexes  much  less  distinct  than  they 


60     ROMANTIC  LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

are  with  us.  Professor  Fritsch,  in  his  classical  treatise  on 
the  natives  of  South  Africa  (407),  dwells  especially  on  the  im- 
perfect sexual  differentiation  of  the  Bushmen.  The  faces, 
stature,  limbs,  and  even  the  chest  and  hips  of  the  women  dif- 
fer so  little  from  those  of  the  men  that  in  looking  at  photo- 
graphs (as  he  says  and  illustrates  by  specimens),  one  finds  it 
difficult  to  tell  them  apart,  though  the  figures  are  almost  nude. 
Both  sexes  are  equally  lean  and  equally  ugly.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  typical  Australians,  and  in  Professor  and 
Mrs.  Agassiz's  Journey  in  Brazil  (530)  we  read  that  "the 
Indian  woman  has  a  very  masculine  air,  extending  indeed 
more  or  less  to  her  whole  bearing  ;  for  even  her  features  have 
rarely  the  feminine  delicacy  of  higher  womanhood.  In  the 
Negro,  on  the  contrary,  the  narrowness  of  chest  and  shoulder 
characteristic  of  the  woman  is  almost  as  marked  in  the  man  ; 
indeed,  it  may  well  be  said,  that,  while  the  Indian  female  is 
remarkable  for  her  masculine  build,  the  negro  male  is  equally 
so  for  his  feminine  aspect."  In  the  Jesuit  Relations  there 
are  repeated  references  to  the  difficulty  of  distinguishing 
squaws  from  male  Indians  except  by  certain  articles  of  dfess. 
Burton  writes  of  the  Sioux  (0.  0.  8.,  59)  that  "the  unac- 
customed eye  often  hesitates  between  the  sexes."  In  School- 
craft  (V.,  274)  we  are  told  concerning  the  Creek  women  that 
"  being  condemned  to  perform  all  the  hard  labor,  they  are 
universally  masculine  in  appearance,  without  one  soft  blan- 
dishment to  render  them  desirable  or  lovely."  Nor  is  there 
anything  alluringly  feminine  in  the  disposition  which,  as  all 
observers  agree,  makes  Indian  women  more  cruel  in  torture 
than  the  most  pitiless  men.  Equally  decisive  is  the  testimony 
regarding  the  similarity  of  the  sexes,  physical  and  mental,  in 
the  islands  of  the  Pacific.  Hawkesworth  (II.,  446)  found  the 
women  of  New  Zealand  so  lacking  in  feminine  delicacy  that 
it  was  difficult  to  distinguish  them  from  the  men,  except  by 
their  voices.  Captain  Cook  (II.,  246)  observed  in  Fiji  differ- 
ences in  form  between  men  and  females,  but  little  difference 
in  features  ;  and  of  the  Hawaiians  he  \vrote  that  with  few  ex- 
ceptions they  "  have  little  claim  to  those  peculiarities  that 
distinguish  the  sex  in  other  countries.  There  is,  indeed,  a 


FASTIDIOUS   SENSUALITY   IS   NOT   LOVE        61 

more  remarkable  equality  in  the  size,  color,  and  figure  of  both 
sexes,  than  in  most  places  I  have  visited/' 


PRIMARY  AND   SECONDARY  SEXUAL  CHARACTERS 

A  most  important  inference  may  be  deduced  from  these 
facts.  A  man  does  not,  normally,  fall  in  love  with  a  man. 
He  falls  in  love  with  a  woman,  because  she  is  a  woman.  Now 
when,  as  in  the  cases  cited,  the  men  and  women  differ  only  in 
regard  to  the  coarsest  anatomical  peculiarities  known  as  the 
primary  sexual  qualities,  it  is  obvious  that  their  "  love  "  also 
can  consist  only  of  such  coarse  feelings  and  longings  as  these 
primary  qualities  can  inspire.  In  other  words  they  can  know 
the  great  passion  only  on  its  sensual  side.  Love,  to  them,  is 
not  a  sentiment  but  an  appetite,  or  at  best  an  instinct  for  the 
propagation  of  the  species. 

Of  the  secondary  sexual  qualities — those  not  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  the  species — the  first  to  ap- 
pear prominently  in  women  is  fat ;  and  as  soon  as  it  does 
appear,  it  is  made  a  ground  of  individual  preference.  Brough 
Smyth  tells  us  that  in  Australia  a  fat  woman  is  never  safe 
from  being  stolen,  no  matter  how  old  and  ugly  she  may  be. 
In  the  chapter  on  Personal  Beauty  I  shall  marshal  a  number 
of  facts  showing  that  among  the  uncivilized  and  Oriental 
races  in  general,  fat  is  the  criterion  of  feminine  attractive- 
ness. It  is  so  among  coarse  men  (i.e.,  most  men)  even  in 
Europe  and  America  to  this  day.  Hindoo  poets,  from  the 
oldest  times  to  Kalidasa  and  from  Kalidasa  to  the  present 
day,  laud  their  heroines  above  all  things  for  their  large 
thighs — thighs  so  heavy  that  in  walking  the  feet  make  an 
impression  on  the  ground  "deep  as  an  elephant's  hoofs/' 


FASTIDIOUS   SENSUALITY   IS   NOT   LOVE 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  "love"  based  on 
these  secondary  qualities  is  not  sentimental  or  romantic.  It 
may,  however — and  this  is  a  very  important  point  to  re- 
member— be  extremely  violent  and  stubborn.  In  other  words, 


62     ROMANTIC   LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

there  may  be  a  strong  individual  preference  in  love  that 
is  entirely  sensual.  Indeed,  lust  may  be  as  fastidious  as  love. 
Tarquinius  coveted  Lucretia  ;  no  other  woman  would  have 
satisfied  him.  Yet  he  did  not  love  her.  Had  he  loved  her 
he  would  have  sacrificed  his  own  life  rather  than  offered  vio- 
lence to  one  who  valued  her  honor  more  than  her  life.  He 
loved  only  himself ;  his  one  object  was  to  please  his  beloved 
ego  ;  he  never  thought  of  her  feelings  and  of  the  conse- 
quences of  his  act  to  her.  The  literature  of  ancient  Rome, 
Greece,  and  Oriental  countries  is  full  of  such  cases  of  indi- 
vidualized "  love "  which,  when  closely  examined,  reduce 
themselves  to  cases  of  selfish  lust — eagerness  to  gratify  an 
appetite  with  a  particular  victim,  for  whom  the  "  lover  "  has 
not  a  particle  of  affection,  respect,  or  sympathy,  not  to 
speak  of  adoration  or  gallant,  self-sacrificing  devotion. 
Unless  we  have  positive  evidence  of  the  presence  of  these 
traits  of  unselfish  affection,  we  are  not  entitled  to  assume  the 
existence  of  genuine  love  ;  especially  among  races  that  are 
coarse,  unsympathetic,  and  cruel. 

TWO    STORIES   OF   INDIAN   LOYE 

From  this  point  of  view  we  must  judge  two  Indian  love- 
stories  related  by  Keating  (II.,  164-1 66)  : 

I.  A  Chippewa  named  Ogemans,  married  to  a  woman  called 
Demoya,  fell  in  love  with  her  sister.     When  she  refused  him 
he  affected  insanity.     His  ravings  were  terrible,  and  nothing 
could  appease  him  but  her  presence ;  the  moment  he  touched 
her  hand  or  came  near  her  he  was  gentle  as  they  could  wish. 
One  time,  in  the  middle  of  a  winter  night,  he  sprang  from  his 
couch  and  escaped  into  the  woods,  howling  and  screaming 
in  the  wildest  manner  ;  his  wife  and  her  sister  followed  him, 
but  he  refused  to  be  calmed  until  the  sister  (Okoj)  laid  her 
hand  on  him,  when  he  became  quiet  and  gentle.     This  kind 
of  performance  he  kept  up  a  long  time  till  all  the  Indians, 
including  the  girl,  became  convinced  he  was  possessed  by  a 
spirit  which  she  alone  could  subdue.     So  she  married  him 
and  never  after  was  he  troubled  by  a  return  of  madness. 

II.  A  young  Canadian  had  secured  the   favor  of  a  half- 
breed  girl  who  had  been  brought  up  among  the  Chippewas 


FEMININE   IDEALS  SUPERIOR  TO   MASCULINE    63 

and  spoke  only  their  language.  Her  name  was  Nisette,  and 
she  was  the  daughter  of  a  converted  squaw  who,  being  very 
pious,  induced  the  young  couple  to  go  to  an  Algonquin  vil- 
lage and  get  regularly  married  by  a  clergyman.  Meanwhile 
the  Canadian's  love  cooled  away,  and  by  the  time  they 
reached  the  village  he  cared  no  more  for  the  poor  girl. 
Soon  thereafter  she  became  the  subject  of  fits  and  was  finally 
considered  to  be  quite  insane.  The  only  lucid  intervals  she 
had  were  in  the  presence  of  her  inconstant  husband.  When- 
ever he  came  near  her,  her  reason  would  return,  and  she 
would  appear  the  same  as  before  her  illness.  Flattered  by 
what  he  deemed  so  strong  an  evidence  of  his  influence  over 
her,  the  Canadian  felt  a  return  of  kindness  toward  her,  and 
was  finally  induced  to  renew  his  attentions,  which,  being 
well  received,  they  were  soon  united  by  a  clergyman.  Her 
reason  appeared  to  be  restored,  and  her  improving  health 
showed  that  her  happiness  was  complete. 


FEMININE   IDEALS   SUPERIOR  TO   MASCULINE 

Keating's  guide  was  convinced  that  in  both  these  cases  the 
insanity  was  feigned  for  the  selfish  purpose  of  working  upon 
the  feelings  of  the  unwilling  party.  Even  apart  from  that, 
there  is  no  trace  of  evidence  in  either  story  that  the  feel- 
ings of  the  lovers  rose  above  sensual  attachment,  though  the 
girl,  being  half  white,  might  have  been  capable  of  an  ap- 
proximation to  a  higher  feeling.  Indeed  it  is  among  women 
that  such  approximations  to  a  higher  type  of  attachment 
must  be  sought ;  for  the  uncivilized  woman's  basis  of  in- 
dividual preference,  while  apt  to  be  utilitarian,  is  less  sen- 
sual than  the  man's.  She  is  influenced  by  his  manly  qual- 
ities of  courage,  valor,  aggressiveness,  because  those  are  of 
value  to  her,  while  he  chooses  her  for  her  physical  charms  and 
has  little  or  no  appreciation  of  the  higher  feminine  qualities. 
Schoolcraft  (V.,  612)  cites  the  following  as  an  Indian  girl's 
ideal  :  "  My  love  is  tall  and  graceful  as  the  young  pine  wav- 
ing on  the  hill — and  as  swift  in  his  course  as  the  stately  deer. 
His  hair  is  flowing,  and  dark  as  the  blackbird  that  floats 
through  the  air,  and  his  eyes,  like  the  eagle's,  both  piercing 
and  bright.  His  heart,  it  is  fearless  and  great — and  his  arm 
it  is  strong  in  the  fight."  Now  it  is  true  that  Schoolcraft  is 


64     ROMANTIC  LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

a  very  unreliable  witness  in  such  matters,  as  we  shall  see  in 
the  chapter  on  Indians.  He  had  a  way  of  taking  coarse  Ind- 
ian tales,  dressing  them  up  in  a  fine  romantic  garb  and  pre- 
senting them  as  the  aboriginal  article.  An  Indian  girl  would 
not  be  likely  to  compare  a  man's  hair  to  a  blackbird's  feathers, 
and  she  certainly  would  never  dream  of  speaking  of  a  "  tall 
and  graceful  pine  waving  on  the  hill."  She  might,  however, 
compare  his  swiftness  to  a  deer's,  and  she  might  admire  his 
sharp  sight,  his  fearlessness,  his  strong  arm  in  a  fight ;  and 
that  is  enough  to  illustrate  what  I  have  just  said — that  her 
preference,  though  utilitarian,  is  less  sensual  than  the  man's. 
It  includes  mental  elements,  and  as  moreover  her  duties  as 
mother  teach  her  sympathy  and  devotion,  it  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at  that  the  earliest  approximations  to  a  higher  type  of 
love  are  on  the  part  of  women.  * 


SEX   IN   BODY  AND  MIND 

As  civilization  progresses,  the  sexes  become  more  and  more 
differentiated,  thus  affording  individual  preference  an  in- 
finitely greater  scope.  The  stamp  of  sex  is  no  longer  conr 
fined  to  the  pelvis  and  the  chest,  but  is  impressed  on  every 
part  of  the  body.  The  women's  feet  become  smaller  and 
more  daintily  shaped  than  the  men's,  the  limbs  more  rounded 
and  tapering  and  less  muscular,  the  waist  narrower,  the  neck 
longer,  the  skin  smoother,  softer,  and  less  hairy,  the  hands 
more  comely,  with  more  slender  fingers,  the  skeleton  more 
delicate,  the  stature  lower,  the  steps  shorter,  the  gait  more 
graceful,  the  features  more  delicately  cut,  the  eyes  more 
beautiful,  the  hair  more  luxuriant  and  lustrous,  the  cheeks 
rounder  and  more  susceptible  to  blushes,  the  lips  more  dain- 
tily curved,  the  smile  sweeter. 

But  the  mind  has  sex  as  well  as  the  body.  It  is  still  in 
process  of  evolution,  and  too  many  individuals  still  approxi- 
mate the  type  of  the  virago  or  the  effeminate  man  ;  but  the 
time  will  come  for  all,  as  it  has  already  come  for  many,  when 
a  masculine  trait  in  a  woman's  character  will  make  as  disa- 
greeable an  impression  as  a  blacksmith's  sinewy  arm  on  the 


TRUE    FEMININITY   AND   ITS   FEMALE   ENEMIES   66 

body  of  a  society  belle  would  make  in  a  ball-room.  To  call  a 
woman  pretty  and  sweet  is  to  compliment  her  ;  to  call  a  man 
pretty  and  sweet  would  be  to  mock  or  insult  him.  The  an- 
cient Greeks  betrayed  their  barbarism  in  amorous  matters  in 
no  way  more  conspicuously  than  by  their  fondness  for  coy, 
effeminate  boys*  and  their  admiration  of  masculine  goddesses 
like  Diana  and  Minerva.  Contrast  this  with  the  modern 
ideal  of  femininity,  as  summed  up  by  Shakspere  : 

Why  are  our  bodies  soft  and  weak  and  smooth, 
Unapt  to  toil  and  trouble  in  the  world, 
But  that  our  soft  conditions  and  our  hearts 
Should  well  agree  with  our  external  parts  ? 


TRUE    FEMININITY   AND   ITS   FEMALE   ENEMIES 

A  woman's  voice  differs  from  a  man's  not  only  in  pitch  but 
in  timbre  ;  its  quality  suggests  the  sex.  There  is  great  scope 
for  variety,  from  the  lowest  contralto  to  the  highest  soprano, 
as  there  is  in  man's  from  the  lowest  bass  to  the  highest  tenor ; 
a  variety  so  great  that  voices  differ  as  much  as  faces  and  can 
be  instantly  recognized  ;  but  unless  it  has  the  proper  sexual 
quality  a  voice  affects  us  disagreeably.  A  coarse,  harsh  voice 
has  marred  many  a  girl's  best  marriage  chances,  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  may  happen  that  "the  ear  loveth  before  the 
eye."  Now  what  is  true  of  the  male  and  female  voice  holds 
true  of  the  male  and  female  mind  in  all  its  diverse  aspects. 
We  expect  men  to  be  not  only  bigger,  stronger,  taller,  har- 
dier, more  robust,  but  more  courageous  and  aggressive,  more 
active,  more  creative,  more  sternly  just,  than  women  ;  while 
coarseness,  cruelty,  selfishness,  and  pugnacity,  though  not 
virtues  in  either  sex,  affect  us  much  less  repulsively  in  men 
than  in  women,  for  the  reason  that  the  masculine  struggle  for 
existence  and  competition  in  business  foster  selfishness,  and 
men  have  inherited. pugnacious  instincts  from  their  fighting 
ancestors,  while  women,  as  mothers,  learned  the  lessons  of 
sympathy  and  self-sacrifice  much  sooner  than  men.  The  dis- 
tinctively feminine  virtues  are  on  the  whole  of  a  much  higher 
order  than  the  masculine,  which  is  the  reason  why  they  were 


66     ROMANTIC  LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

not  appreciated  or  fostered  at  so  early  an  epoch.  Gentle- 
ness, modesty,  domesticity,  girlishness,  coyness,  kindness,  pa- 
tience, tenderness,  benevolence,  sympathy,  self-sacrifice,  de- 
mureness,  emotionality,  sensitiveness,  are  feminine  qualities, 
some  of  which,  it  is  true,  we  expect  also  in  gentlemen ;  but 
their  absence  is  not  nearly  so  fatal  to  a  man  as  it  is  to  a 
woman.  And  as  men  gradually  approach  women  in  patience, 
tenderness,  sympathy,  self-sacrifice,  and  gentleness,  it  be- 
hooves women  to  keep  their  distance  by  becoming  still  more 
refined  and  feminine,  instead  of  trying,  as  so  many  of  them  do, 
to  approach  the  old  masculine  standard — one  of  the  strangest 
aberrations  recorded  in  all  social  history. 

Men  and  women  fall  in  love  with  what  is  unlike,  not  with 
what  is  like  them.  The  refined  physical  and  mental  traits 
which  I  have  described  in  the  preceding  paragraphs  constitute 
some  of  the  secondary  sexual  characters  by  which  romantic 
love  is  inspired,  while  sensual  love  is  based  on  the  primary 
sexual  characters.  Havelock  Ellis  (19)  has  well  defined  a 
secondary  sexual  character  as  "  one  wrhich,  by  more  highly 
differentiating  the  sexes,  helps  to  make  them  more  attractive 
to  each  other, "  and  so  to  promote  marriages.  And  Professor 
Weissmann,  famed  for  his  studies  in  heredity,  opens  up  deep 
vistas  of  thought  when  he  declares  (II.,  91)  that  "  all  the  nu- 
merous differences  in  form  and  function  which  characterize  sex 
among  the  higher  animals,  all  the  so-called  ( secondary  sexual 
characters/  affecting  even  the  highest  mental  qualities  of 
mankind,  are  nothing  but  adaptations  to  bring  about  the 
union  of  the  hereditary  tendencies  of  two  individuals."  Nat- 
ure has  been  at  work  on  this  problem  of  differentiating  the 
sexes  ever  since  it  created  the  lowest  animal  organisms,  and 
this  fact,  which  stands  firm  as  a  rock,  gives  us  the  consoling 
assurance  that  the  present  abnormal  attempts  to  make  women 
masculine  by  giving  them  the  same  education,  employments, 
sports,  ideals,  and  political  aspirations  as  men  have,  must 
end  in  ignominious  failure.  If  the  viragoes  had  their  way, 
men  and  women  would  in  course  of  time  revert  to  the  condi- 
tion of  the  lowest  savages,  differing  only  in  their  organs  of 
generation.  How  infinitely  nobler,  higher,  more  refined  and, 


> 


MYSTERIES   OF  LOVE^  67 

fascinating,  is  that  ideal  which  wants  women  to  differ  from 
men  by  every  detail,  bodily  and  mental ;  to  differ  from  them 
in  the  higher  qualities  of  disposition,  of  character,  of  beauty, 
physical  and  spiritual,  which  alone  make  possible  the  exist- 
ence of  romantic  love  as  distinguished  from  lust  on  one  side 
and  friendship  on  the  other. 


MYSTERIES   OF   LOVE 

If  these  secondary  sexual  characters  could  be  destroyed  by  \ 
the  extraordinary — one  might  almost  say  criminal — efforts  of 
unsexed  termagants  to  make  all  women  ape  men  and  become 
like  them,  romantic  love,  which  was  so  slow  in  coming,  would 
disappear  again,  leaving  only  sensual  appetite,  which  may  be 
(selfishly)  fastidious  and  intense,  but  has  no  depth,  duration, 
or  altruistic  nobility,  and  which,  when  satiated,  cares  no  more 
for  the  object  for  which  it  had  temporarily  hungered.  It  is 
these  secondary  sexual  characters,  with  their  subtle  and  end- 
less variations,  that  have  given  individual  preference  such  a 
wide  field  of  choice  that  every  lover  can  find  a  girl  after  his 
heart  and  taste.  A  savage  is  like  a  gardener  who  has  only 
one  kind  of  flowers  to  choose  between — all  of  one  color  too  ; 
whereas  we,  with  our  diverse  secondary  characters,  our  various 
intermixtures  of  nationalities,  our  endless  shades  of  blonde 
and  brunette,  and  differences  in  manners  and  education  can 
have  our  choice  among  the  lilies,  roses,  violets,  pansies,  dais- 
ies, and  thousands  of  other  flowers — or  the  girls  named  after 
them.  Samuel  Baker  says  there  are  no  broken  hearts  in  Africa. 
Why  should  there  be  when  individuals  are  so  similar  that  if 
a  man  loses  his  girl  he  can  easily  find  another  just  like  her 
in  color,  face,  rotundity,  and  grossness  ?  A  civilized  lover 
would  mourn  the  loss  of  his  bride — though  he  were  offered 
his  choice  of  the  beauties  of  Baltimore — because  it  would  be 
absolutely  impossible  to  duplicate  her. 

In  that  last  line  lies  the  explanation  of  one  of  the  mysteries  V 
of  modern  love — its  stubborn  fidelity  to  the  beloved  after  the 
choice  has  been  made.     But  there  is  another  mystery  of  indi- 
vidual preference  that  calls  for  an  explanation — its  capricious- 


68     ROMANTIC   LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

ness,  apparent  or  real,  in  making  a  choice — that  quality  which 
has  made  the  poets  declare  so  often  that  "  love  is  blind."  On 
this  point  much  confusion  of  ideas  prevails. 

Matters  are  simplified  if  we  first  dispose  of  those  numer- 
ous cases  in  which  the  individual  preference  is  only  approxi- 
mate. If  a  girl  of  eighteen  has  the  choice  between  a  man  of 
sixty  and  a  youth  of  twenty,  she  will,  if  she  exercises  a  per- 
sonal preference,  take  the  youth,  as  a  matter  of  course,  though 
he  may  be  far  from  her  ideal.  Such  preference  is  generic 
rather  than  individual.  Again,  in  most  cases  of  first  love,  as 
I  have  remarked  elsewhere  (It.  L.  P.  B.,  139)  "  man  falls  in 
love  with  woman,  woman  with  man,  not  with  a  particular 
man  or  woman."  Young  men  and  women  inherit,  from  a 
long  series  of  ancestors,  a  disposition  to  love  which  at  puberty 
reveals  itself  in  vague  longings  and  dreams.  The  "  bump  of 
amativeness,"  as  a  phrenologist  might  say,  is  like  a  powder 
magazine,  ready  to  explode  at  a  touch,  and  it  makes  no  great 
difference  what  kind  of  a  match  is  applied.  In  later  love 
affairs  the-  match  is  a  matter  of  more  importance. 

Eobert  Burton  threw  light  on  the  "  capriciousness  "  and 
accidentality  of  this  kind  of  (apparent)  amorous  preference 
when  he  wrote  that  "  it  is  impossible,  almost,  for  two  young 
folks  equal  in  years  to  live  together  and  not  be  in  love  ; "  and 
further  he  says,  sagaciously  : 

"  Many  a  serving  man,  by  reason  of  this  opportunity  and 
importunity,  inveigles  his  master's  daughter,  many  a  gallant 
loves  a  dowdy,  many  a  gentleman  runs  after  his  wifVs  maids  ; 
many  ladies  dote  upon  their  men,  as  the  queen  in  Aristo  did 
upon  the  dwarf,  many  matches  are  so  made  in  haste  and  they 
are  compelled,  as  it  were  by  necessity,  so  to  love,  which  had 
they  been  free,  come  in  company  with  others,  seen  that 
variety  which  many  places  afford,  or  compared  them  to  a 
third,  would  never  have  looked  upon  one  another." 

Such  passions  are  merely  pent-up  emotions  seeking  to  es- 
cape one  way  or  another.  They  do  not  indicate  real,  intense 
preference,  but  at  best  an  approach  to  it ;  for  they  are  not 
properly  individualized,  and,  as  Schopenhauer  pointed  out, 
the  differences  in  the  intensity  of  love-cases  depend  on  their 


AN   ORIENTAL   LOVE-STORY  69 

different  degrees  of  individualization — an  aper$u  which  this 
whole  chapter  confirms.  Yet  these  mere  approximations  to 
real  preference  embrace  the  vast  majority  of  so-called  love- 
affairs.  Genuine  preference  of  the  highest  type  finds  its  ex- 
planation iii  special  phases  of  sympathy  and  personal  beauty 
which  will  be  discussed  later  on. 

What  is  usually  considered  the  greatest  mystery  of  the 
amorous  passion  is  the  disposition  of  a  lover  to  "see  Helen's 
beauty  in  a  brow  of  Egypt."  "What  can  Jack  have  seen  in 
Jill  to  become  infatuated  with  her,  or  she  in  him  ?"  The 
trouble  with  those  who  so  often  ask  this  question  is  that  they 
fix  the  attention  on  the  beloved  instead  of  on  the  lover,  whose 
•lack  of  taste  explains  everything.  The  error  is  of  long  stand- 
ing, as  the  following  story  related  by  the  Persian  poet  Saadi 
(of  the  thirteenth  century)  will  show  (346)  : 

AN   ORIENTAL  LOVE-STORY 

"A  king  of  Arabia  was  told  that  Mujnun,  maddened  by  love, 
had  turned  his  face  toward  the  desert  and  assumed  the  man- 
ners of  a  brute.  The  king  ordered  him  to  be  brought  in  his 
presence  and  he  wept  and  said  :  '  Many  of  my  friends 
reproach  me  for  my  love  of  her,  namely  Laila ;  alas !  that 
they  could  one  day  see  her,  that  my  excuse  might  be  manifest 
for  me/  The  king  sent  for  her  and  beheld  a  person  of  tawny 
complexion,  and  feeble  frame  of  body.  She  appeared  to  him 
in  a  contemptible  light,  inasmuch  as  the  lowest  menial  in  his 
harem,  or  seraglio,  surpassed  her  in  beauty  and  excelled  her 
in  elegance.  Mujnun,  in  his  sagacity,  penetrated  what  was 
passing  in  the  king's  mind  and  said  :  'It  would  behove  you, 
0  King,  to  contemplate  the  charms  of  Laila  through  the 
wicket  of  a  Mujnun's  eye,  in  order  that  the  miracle  of  such 
a  spectacle  might  be  illustrated  to  you/ '' 

This  story  was  referred  to  by  several  critics  of  my  first 
book  as  refuting  my  theory  regarding  the  modernity  of  true 
love.  They  seemed  to  think,  with  the  Persian  poet,  that 
there  must  be  something  particularly  wonderful  and  elevated 
in  the  feelings  of  a  lover  who  is  indifferent  to  the  usual 
charms  of  femininity  and  prefers  ugliness.  This,  indeed,  is 
the  prevalent  sentiment  on  the  subject,  though  the  more  I 


70     ROMANTIC   LOVE— INDIVIDUAL  PREFERENCE 

think  of  it,  the  more  absurd  and  topsy  turvy  it  seems  to  me. 
Do  we  commend  an  Eskimo  for  preferring  the  flavor  of  ran- 
cid fish  oil  to  the  delicate  bouquet  of  the  finest  French  wine  ? 
Does  it  evince  a  particularly  exalted  artistic  sense  to  prefer  a 
hideous  daub  to  a  Titian  or  Raphael  ?  Does  it  betoken  a  laud- 
able and  elevated  taste  in  music  to  prefer  a  vulgar  tune  to  one 
that  has  the  charms  of  a  romantic  or  classical  work  of  ac- 
knowledged beauty  ?  Why,  then,  should  we  specially  extol 
Mujnun  for  admiring  a  woman  who  was  devoid  of  all  femi- 
nine charms  ?  The  confusion  probably  arises  from  fancying 
that  she  must  have  had  mental  charms  to  offset  her  ugliness, 
but  nothing  whatever  is  said  about  such  a  notion,  which,  in 
fact,  would  have  been  utterly  foreign  to  the  Oriental,  purely, 
sensual,  way  of  regarding  women. 

Fix  the  attention  on  the  man  in  the  story  instead  of  on  the 
woman  and  the  mystery  vanishes.  Mujnun  becomes  infatu- 
ated with  an  ugly  woman  simply  because  he  has  no  taste,  no 
sense  of  beauty.  There  are  millions  of  such  men  the  world 
over,  just  as  there  are  millions  who  cannot  appreciate  choice 
wines,  good  music,  and  fine  pictures.  Everywhere  the  ma- 
jority of  men  prefer  vulgar  tunes,  glaring  chromos,  and  coarse 
women — luckily  for  the  women,  because  most  of  them  are 
coarse,  too.  ' '  Birds  of  a  feather  flock  together  "—there  you 
have  the  philosophy  of  preference  so  far  as  such  love-aifairs 
are  concerned.  How  often  do  we  see  a  bright,  lovely  girl, 
with  sweet  voice  and  refined  manners,  neglected  by  men  who 
crowd  around  other  women  of  their  own  rude  and  vulgar  caste  ! 
Most  men  still  are  savages  so  far  as  the  ability  to  appreciate 
the  higher  secondary  sexual  qualities  in  women  is  concerned. 
But  the  exceptions  are  growing  more  numerous.  Among 
savages  there  are  110  exceptions.  Romantic  love  does  not  ex- 
ist among  them,  both  because  the  women  have  not  the  sec- 
ondary sexual  qualities,  and  because,  even  if  they  had  them, 
the  men  would  not  appreciate  them  or  be  guided  by  them  in 
their  choice  of  mates. 


JULIET  AND   NOTHING   BUT  JULIET  71 


II.     MONOPOLISM 

Whenever  she  speaks,  my  ravished  ear 
No  other  voice  but  hers  can  hear, 
No  other  wit  but  hers  approve : 
Tell  me,  my  heart,  if  this  be  love? 

—Lyttleton. 

Every  lover  of  nature  must  have  noticed  how  the  sun  mo- 
nopolizes the  attention  of  flowers  and  leaves.  Twist  and  turn 
them  whichever  way  you  please,  on  returning  afterward  you 
will  find  them  all  facing  the  beloved  sun  again  with  their 
bright  corollas  and  glossy  surface.  Romantic  love  exacts  a 
similar  monopoly  of  its  devotees.  Be  their  feelings  as  various, 
their  thoughts  as  numerous,  as  the  flowers  in  a  garden,  the 
leaves  in  a  forest,  they  will  always  be  turned  toward  the  be- 
loved one. 

JULIET  AND   NOTHING   BUT  JULIET 

A  man  may  have  several  intimate  friends,  and  a  mother 
may  dote  on  a  dozen  or  more  children  with  equal  affection ; 
but  romantic  love  is  a  monopolist,  absolutely  exclusive  of  all 
participation  and  rivalry.  A  genuine  Romeo  wants  Juliet,  the 
whole  of  Juliet,  and  nothing  but  Juliet.  She  monopolizes  his 
thoughts  by  day,  his  dreams  at  night ;  her  image  blends  with 
everything  he  sees,  her  voice  with  everything  he  hears.  His 
imagination  is  a  lens  which  gathers  together  all  the  light  and 
heat  of  a  giant  world  and  focuses  them  on  one  brunette  or 
blonde.  He  is  a  miser,  who  begrudges  every  smile,  every 
look  she  bestows  on  others,  and  if  he  had  his  own  way  he 
would  sail  with  her  to-day  to  a  desert  island  and  change  their 
names  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Robinson  Crusoe.  This  is  not  fanciful 
hyperbole,  but  a  plain  statement  in  prose  of  a  psychological 
truth.  The  poets  did  not  exaggerate  when  they  penned  such 
sentiments  as  these : 

She  was  his  life, 

The  ocean  to  the  river  of  his  thoughts, 
Which  terminated  all. — Byron. 


72  ROMANTIC   LOVE— MONOPOLISM 

Thou  art  my  life,  my  love,  my  heart, 

The  very  eyes  of  me, 
And  hast  command  of  every  part, 

To  live  and  die  for  thee. — Herrick. 

Give  me  but  what  that  ribband  bound, 

Take  all  the  rest  the  world  goes  round. —  Waller. 

But  I  am  tied  to  very  thee 

By  every  thought  I  have  ; 
Thy  face  I  only  care  to  see 

Thy  heart  I  only  crave. — Sedley. 

I  see  her  in  the  dewy  flowers, 

Sae  lovely  sweet  and  fair  : 
I  hear  her  voice  in  ilka  bird, 

Wi'  music  charm  the  air  : 
There's  not  a  bonnie  flower  that  springs 

By  fountain,  shaw,  or  green ; 
There's  not  a  bonny  bird  that  sings, 

But  miners  me  o'  my  Jean. — Burns. 

For  nothing  this  wide  universe  I  call 

Save  thou,  my  rose  :  in  it  thou  art  my  all. — Shakspere. 

Like  Alexander  I  will  reign, 

And  I  will  reign  alone, 
My  thoughts  shall  evermore  disdain 

A  rival  on  my  throne.—  James  Graham. 

Love,  well  thou  know'st  no  partnerships  allows. 
Cupid  averse,  rejects  divided  vows. — Prior. 

O  that  the  desert  were  my  dwelling-place, 
With  one  fair  spirit  for  my  minister, 

That  I  might  all  forget  the  human  race 

And,  hating  no  one,  love  but  only  her. — Byron. 


BUTTERFLY   LOVE 

The  imperative  desire  for  an  absolute  monopoly  of  one 
chosen  girl,  body  and  soul — and  one  only — is  an  essential,  in- 
variable ingredient  of  romantic  love.  Sensual  love,  on  the 
contrary,  aims  rather  at  a  monopoly  of  all  attractive  women 
— or  at  least  as  many  as  possible.  Sensual  love  is  not  an  ex- 
clusive passion  for  one;  it  is  a  fickle  feeling  which,  like  a 


BUTTERFLY   LOVE  73 

giddy  butterfly,  flits  from  flower  to  flower,  forgetting  the  fra- 
grance of  the  lily  it  left  a  moment  ago  in  the  sweet  honey  of 
the  clover  it  enjoys  at  this  moment.  The  Persian  poet  Sadi, 
says  (Bustan,  12),  "  Choose  a  fresh  wife  every  spring  or  New 
Year's  Day ;  for  the  almanack  of  last  year  is  good  for  noth- 
ing." Anacreon  interprets  Greek  love  for  us  when  he  sings : 
"  Can'st  count  the  leaves  in  a  forest,  the  waves  in  the  sea? 
Then  tell  me  how  oft  I  have  loved.  Twenty  girls  in  Athens, 
and  fifteen  more  besides  ;  add  to  these  whole  bevies  in  Co- 
rinth, and  from  Lesbos  to  Ionia,  from  Caria  and  from  Kho- 
dos,  two  thousand  sweethearts  more.  .  .  .  Two  thousand 
did  I  say  ?  That  includes  not  those  from  Syros,  from 
Kanobus,  from  Greta's  cities,  where  Eros  rules  alone,  nor 
those  from  Gadeira,  from  Bactria,  from  India — girls  for 
whom  I  burn." 

Lucian  vies  with  Anacreon  when  he  makes  Theomestus  (Dial. 
Amor.)  exclaim:  "Sooner  can'st  thou  number  the  waves  of 
the  sea  and  the  snowflakes  falling  from  the  sky  than  my  loves. 
One  succeeds  another,  and  the  new  one  comes  on  before  the 
old  is  off."  We  call  such  a  thing  libertinism,  not  love.  The 
Greeks  had  not  the  name  of  Don  Juan,  yet  Don  Juan  was 
their  ideal  both  for  men  and  for  the  gods  they  made  in  the 
image  of  man.  Homer  makes  the  king  of  gods  tell  his  own 
spouse  (who  listens  without  offence)  of  his  diverse  love-affairs 
(Iliad,  xiv.,  317-327).  Thirteen  centuries  after  Homer  the 
Greek  poet  Nonnus  gives  (Aiowo-iaKa,  vii.)  a  catalogue  of 
twelve  of  Zeus's  amours  ;  and  we  know  from  other  sources 
(e.g.,  Hygin,  fab.,  155)  that  these  accounts  are  far  from  ex- 
haustive. A  complete  list  would  match  that  yard-long  docu- 
ment made  for  Don  Juan  by  Leporello  in  Mozart's  opera.  A 
French  writer  has  aptly  called  Jupiter  the  <(  Olympian  Don 
Juan  ; "  yet  Apollo  and  most  of  the  other  gods  might  lay  claim 
to  the  same  title,  for  they  are  represented  as  equally  amorous, 
sensual,  and  fickle  ;  seeing  no  more  wrong  in  deserting  a  woman 
they  have  made  love  to,  than  a  bee  sees  in  leaving  a  flower 
whose  honey  it  has  stolen. 

Temporarily,  of  course,  both  men  and  gods  focus  their  in- 
terest on  one  woman — maybe  quite  ardently — and  fiercely 


74  ROMANTIC    LOVE— MONOPOLISM 

resent  interference,  as  an  angry  bee  is  apt  to  sting  when  kept 
from  the  flower  it  has  accidentally  chosen  ;  but  that  is  a  dif- 
ferent thing  from  the  monopolism  of  true  love. 


BOMA'NTIC   STOEIES   OF   NON-ROMANTIC   LOVE 

The  romantic  lover's  dream  is  to  marry  one  particular  woman 
and  her  alone  ;  the  sensual  lover's  dream  embraces  several 
women,  or  many.  The  unromantic  ideal  of  the  ancient 
Hindoo  is  romantically  illustrated  in  a  story  told  in  the 
Hitopadesa  of  a  Brahman  named  Wedasarman.  One  even- 
ing someone  made  him  a  present  of  a  dish  of  barley-meal.  He 
carried  it  to  the  market  hall  and  lay  down  in  a  corner  near 
where  a  potter  had  stored  his  wares.  Before  going  to  sleep, 
the  Brahman  indulged  in  these  pleasant  reveries  :  "If  I  sell 
this  dish  of  meal  I  shall  probably  get  ten  farthings  for  it. 
For  that  I  can  buy  some  of  these  pots,  which  I  can  sell  again 
at  a  profit ;  thus  my  money  will  increase.  Then  I  shall 
begin  to  trade  in  betel-nuts,  dress-goods  and  other  things,  and 
thus  I  may  bring  my  wealth  up  to  a  hundred  thousand.  With 
that  I  shall  be  able  to  marry  four  wives,  and  to  the  youngest 
and  prettiest  of  them  I  shall  give  my  tenderest  love.  How 
the  others  will  be  tortured  by  jealousy  !  But  just  let  them 
dare  to  quarrel.  They  shall  know  my  wrath  and  feel  my  club  \" 
With  these  words  he  laid  about  him  with  his  club,  and  of 
course  broke  his  own  dish  besides  many  of  the  potter's  wares. 
The  potter  hearing  the  crash,  ran  to  see  what  was  the  matter, 
and  the  Brahman  was  ignominiously  thrown  out  of  the  hall. 

The  polygamous  imagination  of  the  Hindoos  runs  riot  in 
many  of  their  stories.  To  give  another  instance :  T/ie  Katlia- 
ko$a,  or  Treasury  of  Stories  (translated  by  C.  H.  Tawney, 
34),  includes  an  account  of  the  adventures  of  King  Kauchana- 
pura,  who  had  five  hundred  wives  ;  and  of  Sanatkumara  who 
beheld  eight  daughters  of  Manavega  and  married  them. 
Shortly  afterward  he  married  a  beautiful  lady  and  her  sister. 
Then  he  conquered  Vajravega  and  married  one  hundred 
maidens. . 

Hindoo  books  assure  us  that  women,  unless  restrained,  are 


STORIES   OF   NON-ROMANTIC   LOVE  75 

no  better  than  men.  We  read  in  the  same  Hitopadesa  that 
they  are  like  cows — always  searching  for  new  herbs  in  the 
meadows  to  graze  on.  In  polyandrous  communities  the 
women  make  good  use  of  their  opportunities.  Dalton,  in  his 
book  on  the  wild  tribes  of  Bengal,  tells  this  quaint  story  (36)  : 

"A  very  pretty  Dophla  girl  once  came  into  the  station  of 
Luckimpur,  threw  herself  at  my  feet  and  in  most  poetical 
language  asked  me  to  give  her  protection.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  a  chief  and  was  sought  in  marriage  and  promised 
to  a  peer  of  her  father  who  had  many  other  wives.  She  would 
not  submit  to  be  one  of  many,  and  besides  she  loved  and  she 
eloped  with  her  beloved.  This  was  interesting  and  romantic. 
She  was  at  the  time  in  a  very  coarse  travelling  dress,  but  as- 
sured of  protection  she  took  fresh  apparel  and  ornament  from 
her  basket  and  proceeded  to  array  herself,  and  very  pretty  she 
looked  as  she  combed  and  plaited  her  long  hair  and  completed 
her  toilette.  In  the  meantime  I  had  sent  for  the  '  beloved/ 
who  had  kept  in  the  background,  and  alas  !  how  the  romance 
was  dispelled  when  a  dual  appeared  !  She  had  eloped  with  two 
men  !  " 

Every  reader  will  laugh  at  this  denouement,  and  that  laugh 
is  eloquent  proof  that  in  saying  there  can  be  no  real  love  with- 
out absolute  monopolism  of  one  heart  by  another  I  simply 
formulated  and  emphasized  a  truth  which  we  all  feel  in- 
stinctively. Dalton's  tale  also  brings  out  very  clearly  the 
world-wide  difference  between  a  romantic  love-story  and  a 
story  of  romantic  love. 

Turning  from  the  Old  World  to  the  New  we  find  stories  illus- 
trating the  same  amusing  disregard  of  amorous  monopolism. 
Rink,  in  his  book  of  Eskimo  tales  and  traditions,  cites  a  song 
which  voices  the  reveries  of  a  Greenland  bachelor  : 

"I  am  going  to  leave  the  country — in  a  large  ship — for  that 
sweet  little  woman.  I'll  try  to  get  some  beads — of  those  that 
look  like  boiled  ones.  Then  when  Fve  gone  abroad — I  shall 
return  again.  My  nasty  little  relatives — I'll  call  them  all  to 
me — and  give  them  a  good  thrashing — with  a  big  rope's  end. 
Then  I'll  go  to  marry — talcing  two  at  once.  That  darling 
little  creature — shall  only  wear  clothes  of  the  spotted  seal-skins, 
and  the  other  little  pet  shall  have  clothes  of  the  young  hooded 
seals." 


76  ROMANTIC    LOVE— MONOPOLISM 

Powers  (227)  tells  a  tragic  tale  of  the  California  Indians, 
which  in  some  respects  reminds  one  of  the  man  who  jumped 
into  a  bramble-bush  and  scratched  out  both  his  eyes.  "There 
was  once  a  man  who  loved  two  women  and  wished  to  marry 
them.  Now  these  two  women  were  magpies,  but  they  loved 
him  not,  and  laughed  his  wooing  to  scorn.  Then  he  fell  into  a 
rage  and  cursed  these  two  women,  and  went  far  away  to  the 
North.  There  he  set  the  world  on  fire,  then  made  for  himself  a 
tule  boat,  wherein  he  escaped  to  sea,  and  was  never  seen  more/ 

Belden,  who  spent  twelve  years  among  the  Sioux  and 
other  Indians,  writes  (302)  :  "I  once  knew  a  young  man 
who  had  about  a  dozen  horses  he  had  captured  at  different 
times  from  the  enemy,  and  who  fell  desperately  in  love  with 
a  girl  of  nineteen.  She  loved  him  in  return,  but  said  she 
could  not  bear  to  leave  her  tribe,  and  go  to  a  Santee  village, 
unless  her  two  sisters,  aged  respectively  fifteen  and  seventeen, 
went  with  her.  Determined  to  have  his  sweetheart,  the  next 
time  the  warrior  visited  the  Yankton  village  he  took  several 
ponies  with  him,  and  bought  all  three  of  the  girls  from  their 
parents,  giving  five  ponies  for  them/' 


OBSTACLES   TO   MONOPOLISM 

Heriot,  during  his  sojourn  among  Canadian  Indians,  be- 
came convinced  from  what  he  saw  that  love  does  not  admit 
of  divided  affections,  and  can  hardly  coexist  with  polygamy 
(324).  Schoolcraft  notes  the  "curious  fact"  concerning  the 
Indian  that  after  a  war  "  one  of  the  first  things  he  thought 
of  as  a  proper  reward  for  his  bravery  was  to  take  another  wife." 
In  the  chapter  entitled  "  Honorable  Polygamy"  we  saw  how, 
in  polygamous  communities  the  world  over,  monogamy  was 
despised  as  the  "poor  man's  marriage,"  and  was  practised, 
not  from  choice,  but  from  necessity.  Every  man  who  was 
able  to  do  so  bought  or  stole  several  women,  and  joined  the 
honorable  guild  of  polygamists.  Such  a  custom,  enforced 
by  a  strong  public  opinion,  created  a  sentiment  which  greatly 
retarded  the  development  of  monopolism  in  sexual  love.  A 
young  Indian  might  dream  of  marrying  a  certain  girl,  not, 


WIVES   AND   GIRLS   IN    COMMON  77 

however,  with  a  view  to  giving  her  his  whole  heart,  but  only 
as  a  beginning.  The  woman,  it  is  true,  was  expected  to  give 
herself  to  one  husband,  but  he  seldom  hesitated  to  lend  her 
to  a  friend  as  an  act  of  hospitality,  and  in  many  cases  would 
hire  her  out  to  a  stranger  in  return  for  gifts. 

In  not  a  few  communities  of  Asia,  Melanesia,  Polynesia, 
Australia,  Africa,  and  America  polyandry  prevailed  ;  that  is, 
the  woman  was  expected  to  bestow  her  caresses  in  turn  on 
two  or  more  men,  to  the  destruction  of  the  desire  for  exclusive 
possession  which  is  an  imperative  trait  of  love.  Rowney 
describes  (154)  wljat  we  might  call  syndicate  marriage  which 
has  prevailed  among  the  Meeris  of  India  :  "  All  the  girls  have 
their  prices,  the  largest  price  for  the  best-looking  girl  vary- 
ing from  twenty  to  thirty  pigs,  and,  if  one  man  cannot  give 
so  many,  he  has  no  objection  to  take  partners  to  make  up  the 
number/'  According  to  Julius  Caesar,  it  was  customary  among 
the  ancient  Britons  for  brothers,  and  sometimes  for  father 
and  sons,  to  have  their  wives  in  common,  and  Tacitus  found 
evidence  of  a  similar  custom  among  the  ancient  Germans  ; 
while  in  some  parts  of  Media  it  was  the  ambition  of  the 
women  to  have  two  or  more  husbands,  and  Strabo  relates  that 
those  who  succeeded  looked  down  with  pride  on  their  less 
fortunate  sisters.  When  the  Spaniards  first  arrived  at 
Lanzarote,  in  South  America,  they  found  the  women  mar- 
ried to  several  husbands,  who  lived  with  their  common  spouse 
in  turn  each  a  month.  The  Tibetans,  according  to  Samuel 
Turner,  look  on  marriage  as  a  disagreeable  duty  which  the 
members  of  a  family  must  try  to  alleviate  by  sharing  its 
burdens.  The  Nair  woman  in  India  may  have  up  to  ten  or 
twelve  husbands,  with  each  of  whom  she  lives  ten  days  at  a 
time.  Among  some  Himalayan  tribes,  when  the  oldest 
brother  marries,  he  generally  shares  his  wife  with  his  younger 
brothers. 

WIVES    AND    GIRLS   IN"    COMMON 

Of  the  Port  Lincoln  Tribe  in  Australia,  Schurmann  says 
(223)  that  the  brothers  practically  have  their  wives  in  com- 
mon. "  A  peculiar  nomenclature  has  arisen  from  these  sin- 


78  ROMANTIC   LOVE—MONOPOLISM 

gular  connections  ;  a  woman  honors  the  brothers  of  the  man 
to  whom  she  is  married  by  the  indiscriminate  name  of  hus- 
bands ;  but  the  men  make  a  distinction,  calling  their  own 
individual  spouses  yungaras,  and  those  to  whom  they  have  a 
secondary  claim,  by  right  of  brotherhood,  kartetis." 

R.  H.  Codrington,  a  scientifically  educated  missionary  who 
had  twenty-four  years'  experience  on  the  islands  of  the  Pacific, 
wrote  a  valuable  book  on  the  Melanesians  in  which  occur  the 
following  luminous  remarks  : 

"All  women  who  may  become  wives  in  marriage,  and  are 
not  yet  appropriated,  are  to  a  certain  extent  looked  upon  by 
those  who  may  be  their  husbands  as  open  to  a  more  or  less 
legitimate  intercourse.  In  fact,  appropriation  of  particular 
women  to  their  own  husbands,  though  established  by  every 
sanction  of  native  custom,  has  by  no  means  so  strong  a  hold 
in  native  society,  nor  in  all  probability  anything  like  so  deep 
a  foundation  in  the  history  of  the  native  people,  as  the  sever- 
ance of  either  sex  by  divisions  which  most  strictly  limit  the 
intercourse  of  men  and  women  to  those  of  the  section  or  sec- 
tions to  which  they  themselves  do  not  belong.  Two  proofs 
or  exemplifications  of  this  are  conspicuous.  (1)  There  is 
probably  no  place  in  which  the  common  opinion  of  Melan- 
esians approves  the  intercourse  of  the  unmarried  youths  and 
girls  as  a  thing  good  in  itself,  though  it  allows  it  as  a  thing 
to  be  expected  and  excused  ;  but  intercourse  within  the 
limit  which  restrains  from  marriage,  where  two  members  of 
the  same  division  are  concerned,  is  a  crime,  is  incest.  .  .  . 
(2)  The  feeling,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  intercourse  of 
the  sexes  was  natural  where  the  man  and  woman  belonged  to 
different  divisions,  was  shown  by  that  feature  of  native 
hospitality  which  provided  a  guest  with  a  temporary  wife." 
Though  now  denied  in  some  places,  "  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  it  was  common  everywhere." 

Nor  can  there  be  any  doubt  that  what  Codrington  here  says 
of  the  Melanesians  applies  also  to  Polynesians,  Australians, 
and  to  uncivilized  peoples  in  general.  It  shows  that  even 
where  monogamy  prevails — as  it  does  quite  extensively  among 
the  lower  races1 — we  must  not  look  for  monopolism  as  a 
matter  of  course.  The  two  are  very  far  from  being  identical. 
Primitive  marriage  is  not  a  matter  of  sentiment  but  of  utility 

1  See  Westermarck,  Chap,  xx.,  for  a  list  of  monogamous  peoples. 


TRIAL   MARRIAGES  79 

and  sensual  greed.  Monogamy,  in  its  lower  phases,  does 
not  exclude  promiscuous  intercourse  before  marriage  and 
(with  the  husband's  permission)  after  marriage.  A  man  ap- 
propriates a  particular  woman,  not  because  he  is  solicitous 
for  a  monopoly  of  her  chaste  affections,  but  because  he  needs 
a  drudge  to  cook  and  toil  for  him.  Primitive  marriage,  in 
short,  has  little  in  common  with  civilized  marriage  except 
the  name — an  important  fact  the  disregard  of  which  has  led 
to  no  end  of  confusion  in  anthropological  and  sociological 
literature.1 

TKIAL   MARRIAGES 

At  a  somewhat  higher  stage,  marriage  becomes  primarily 
an  institution  for  raising  soldiers  for  the  state  or  sons  to  per- 
form ancestor  worship.  This  is  still  very  far  from  the  modern 
ideal  which  makes  marriage  a  lasting  union  of  two  loving 
souls,  children  or  no  children.  Particularly  instructive,  from 
our  point  of  view,  is  the  custom  of  trial  marriage,  which  has 
prevailed  among  many  peoples  differing  otherwise  as  widely  as 
ancient  Egyptians  and  modern  Borneans.3  A  modern  lover 
would  loathe  the  idea  of  such  a  trial  marriage,  because  he  feels 
sure  that  his  love  will  be  eternal  and  unalterable.  He  may  be 
mistaken,  but  that  at  any  rate  is  his  ideal :  it  includes  last- 
ing monopolism.  If  a  modern  sweetheart  offered  her  lover  a 
temporary  marriage,  he  would  either  firmly  and  anxiously 
decline  it,  fearing  that  she  might  take  advantage  of  the  con- 
tract and  leave  him  at  the  end  of  the  year  ;  or,  what  is  much 
more  probable,  his  love,  if  genuine,  would  die  a  sudden  death, 
because  no  respectable  girl  could  make  such  an  offer,  and 
genuine  love  cannot  exist  without  respect  for  the  beloved, 
whatever  may  be  said  to  the  contrary  by  those  who  know  not 
the  difference  between  sensual  and  sentimental  love. 

1  The  vexed  question  of  promiscuity  hinges  on  this  distinction.  As  a  matter  of 
form  promiscuity  may  not  have  been  the  earliest  phase  of  human  marriage,  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  was.  Westermarck's  ingeniously  and  elaborately  built  up 
argument  against  the  theory  of  promiscuity  is  a  leaning  tower  which  crashes  to 
the  ground  when  weighted  by  this  one  consideration.  See  the  chapter  on 
Australia. 

a  For  a  partial  list  of  peoples  who  practised  trial  marriage  and  frequent 
divorce  see  Westermarck,  518-521,  and  C.  Fischer,  Ueber  die  Probendchte  der 
deutsc?ie?t  Bauer  nmddchen.  Leipzig,  1780. 


80  ROMANTIC   LOVE— MONOPOLISM 


TWO    ROMAK   LOVERS 

While  I  am  convinced  that  all  these  things  are  as  stated,  I 
do  not  wish  to  deny  that  monopolism  of  a  violent  kind  may 
and  does  occur  in  love  which  is  merely  sensual.  In  fact,  I 
have  expressly  classed  monopolism  among  those  seven  in- 
gredients of  love  which  occur  in  its  sensual  as  well  as  its  sen- 
timental phases.  For  a  correct  diagnosis  of  love  it  is  indeed 
of  great  importance  to  bear  this  in  mind,  as  we  might  other- 
wise be  led  astray  by  specious  passages,  especially  in  Greek 
and  Roman  literature,  in  which  sensual  love  sometimes  reaches 
a  degree  of  subtility,  delicacy,  and  refinement,  which  ap- 
proximate it  to  sentimental  love,  though  a  critical  analysis 
always  reveals  the  difference.  The  two  best  instances  I  know 
of  occur  in  Ti  bull  us  and  Terence.  Tibullus,  in  one  of  his 
finest  poems  (IV.,  13),  expresses  the  monopolistic  wish  that 
his  favorite  might  seem  beautiful  to  him  only,  displeasing  all 
others,  for  then  he  would  be  safe  from  all  rivalry  ;  then  he 
might  live  happy  in  forest  solitudes,  and  she  alone  would  be 
to  him  a  multitude  : 

Atque  utinam  posses  uni  mibi  bella  videri ; 
Displiceas  aliis  :  sic  ego  tutus  ero. 
•  *  » 

Sic  ego  secretis  possum  bene  vivere  silvis 

Qua  nulla  Immano  sit  via  trita  pede. 
Tu  mibi  curarum  requies,  tu  nocte  vel  atra 

Lumen,  et  in  solis  tu  mibi  turba  locia. 

Unfortunately,  the  opening  line  of  this  poem  : 

Nulla  tuum  nobis  subducet  femina  lectum, 

and  what  is  known  otherwise  of  the  dissolute  character  of  the 
poet  and  of  all  the  women  to  whom  he  addressed  his  verses, 
make  it  only  too  obvious  that  there  is  here  no  question  of 
purity,  of  respect,  of  adoration,  of  any  of  the  qualities  which 
distinguish  supersensual  love  from  lust. 

More  interesting  still  is  a  passage   in   the  Eunuclms   of 


TWO   ROMAN   LOVERS  81 

Terence  (I.,  2)  which  has  doubtless  misled  many  careless 
readers  into  accepting  it  as  evidence  of  genuine  romantic 
love,  existing  two  thousand  years  ago  :  "  What  more  do  I 
wish  ?"  asks  Phaedria  of  his  girl  Thais  :  "  That  while  at  the 
soldier's  side  you  are  not  his,  that  you  love  me  day  and 
night,  desire  mo,  dream  of  me,  expect  me,  think  of  me, 
hope  for  me,  take  delight  in  me,  finally,  be  my  soul  as  I  am 
yours." 

Here,  too,  there  is  no  trace  of  supersensual,  self-sacrificing 
affection  (the  only  sure  test  of  love)  ;  but  it  might  be  argued 
that  the  monopolism,  at  any  rate,  is  absolute.  But  when  we 
read  the  whole  play,  even  that  is  seen  to  be  mere  verbiage  and 
affectation — sentimentality,1  not  sentiment.  The  girl  in  ques- 
tion is  a  common  harlot  "never  satisfied  with  one  lover, "  as 
Parmeno  tells  her,  and  she  answers  :  "  Quite  true,  but  do  not 
bother  me"— and  her  Phsedria,  though  he  talks  monopolism, 
does  not  feel  it,  for  in  the  first  act  she  easily  persuades  him 
to  retire  to  the  country  for  a  few  days,  while  she  offers  her- 
self to  a  soldier.  And  again,  at  the  end  of  the  play,  when 
he  seems  at  last  to  have  ousted  his  military  rival,  the  lat- 
ter's  parasite  Gnatho  persuades  him,  without  the  slightest 
difficulty,  to  continue  sharing  the  girl  with  the  soldier,  be- 
cause the  latter  is  old  and  harmless,  but  has  plenty  of  money, 
while  Phaedria  is  poor. 

Thus  a  passage  which  at  first  sight  seemed  sentimental  and 
romantic,  resolves  itself  into  flabby  sensualism,  with  no  more 
moral  fibre  than  the  "  love  "  of  the  typical  Turk,  as  revealed, 
for  instance,  in  a  love  song,  communicated  by  Eugene  Schuy- 
ler  (I.,  135)  :  "  Nightingale  !  I  am  sad  !  As  passionately 
as  thou  lovest  the  rose,  so  loudly  sing  that  my  loved  one 
awake.  Let  me  die  in  the  embrace  of  my  dear  one,  for  I 
envy  no  one.  I  know  that  thou  hast  many  lovers ;  but  what 
affair  of  mine  is  that  ?" 

One  of  the  most  characteristic  literary  curiosities  relating  to 
monopolism  that  I  have  found  occurs  in  the  Hindoo  drama, 
Malavika  and  Agnimitra  (Act  V.).  While  intended  very 

1  For  the  distinction  between  sentiment  and  sentimentality  see  the  chapter 
on  Sensuality,  Sentimentality,  and  Sentiment. 


82  ROMANTIC    LOVE— JEALOUSY 

seriously,  to  us  it  reads  for  all  the  world  like  a  polygamons 
parody  by  Artemus  Ward  of  Byron's  lines  just  cited  ("  She 
was  his  life,  The  ocean  to  the  river  of  his  thoughts,  Which 
terminated  all ").  An  Indian  queen  having  generously  be- 
stowed on  her  husband  a  rival  to  be  his  second  wife,  Kausiki, 
a  Buddhist  nun,  commends  her  action  in  these  words  :  "  I 
am  not  surprised  at  your  magnanimity.  If  wives  are  kind 
and  devoted  to  their  husbands  they  even  serve  them  by  bring- 
ing them  new  wives,  like  the  streams  which  become  channels 
for  conveying  the  water  of  the  rivers  to  the  ocean/' 

Monopolism  has  a  watch-dog,  a  savage  Cerberus,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  ward  off  intruders.  He  goes  by  the  name  of 
Jealousy,  and  claims  our  attention  next. 


III.     JEALOUSY 

For  love,  thou  know'st,  is  full  of  jealousy. — Shaksperc. 

Jealousy  may  exist  apart  from  sexual  love,  but  there 
can  be  no  such  love  without  jealousy,  potential  at  any  rate, 
for  in  the  absence  of  provocation  it  need  never  manifest  it- 
self. Of  all  the  ingredients  of  love  it  is  the  most  savage  and 
selfish,  as  commonly  witnessed,  and  we  should  therefore  ex- 
pect it  to  be  present  at  all  stages  of  this  passion,  including 
the  lowest.  Is  this  the  case  ?  The  answer  depends  entirely 
upon  what  we  mean  by  jealousy.  Giraud-Teulon  and  Le  Bon 
have  held — as  did  Rousseau  long  before  them — that  this  pas- 
sion is  unknown  among  almost  all  uncivilized  peoples,  where- 
as the  latest  writer  on  the  subject,  Westermarck,  tries  to 
prove  (117)  that  "  jealousy  is  universally  prevalent  in  the 
human  race  at  the  present  day  "  and  that  "  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  there  ever  was  a  time  when  man  was  devoid  of 
that  powerful  feeling."  It  seems  strange  that  doctors  should 
disagree  so  radically  on  what  seems  so  simple  a  question  ; 
but  we  shall  see  that  the  question  is  far  from  being  simple, 
and  that  the  dispute  arose  from  that  old  source  of  confusion, 
the  use  of  one  word  for  several  entirely  different  things. 


WOMEN   AS   PRIVATE   PROPERTY  83 


RAGE   AT   RIVALS 

It  is  among  fishes,  in  the  scale  of  animal  life,  that  jealousy 
first  makes  its  appearance,  according  to  Romanes.  But  in 
animals  "  jealousy,"  be  it  that  of  a  fish  or  a  stag,  is  little 
more  than  a  transient  rage  at  a  rival  who  comes  in  presence 
of  the  female  he  himself  covets  or  has  appropriated.  This 
murderous  wrath  at  a  rival  is  a  feeling  which,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course  a  human  savage  may  share  with  a  wolf  or  an 
alligator ;  and  in  its  ferocious  indulgence  primitive  man 
places  himself  on  a  level  with  brutes — nay,  below  them,  for  in 
the  struggle  he  often  kills  the  female,  which  an  animal  never 
does.  This  wrath  is  not  jealousy  as  we  know  it ;  it  lacks  a 
number  of  essential  moral,  intellectual,  imaginative  elements 
as  we  shall  presently  see ;  some  of  these  are  found  in  the 
amorous  relations  of  birds,  but  not  of  savages,  who  are  now 
under  discussion.  If  it  is  true  that,  as  some  authorities  be- 
lieve, there  was  a  time  when  human  beings  had,  like  animals, 
regular  and  limited  annual  mating  periods,  this  rage  at  rivals 
must  have  often  assumed  the  most  ferocious  aspect,  to  be 
followed,  as  with  animals,  by  long  periods  of  indifference.1 


WOMEH   AS   PRIVATE   PROPERTY 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  since  the  human  infant  needs 
parental  care  much  longer  than  young  animals  need  it, 
natural  selection  must  have  favored  the  survival  of  the  off- 
spring of  couples  who  did  not  separate  after  a  mating  period 
but  remained  together  some  years.  This  tendency  would  be 
further  favored  by  the  warrior's  desire  to  have  a  private 
drudge  or  conjugal  slave.  Having  stolen  or  bought  such  a 
"wife"  and  protected  her  against  wild  beasts  and  men,  he 
would  come  to  feel  a  sense  of  ownership  in  her — as  in  his  pri- 

1  Johnston  states  (in  Schoolcraft,  IV. ,  224)  that  the  wild  Indians  of  Califor- 
nia had  their  rutting  season  as  regularly  as  have  the  deer  and  other  animals. 
See  also  Powers  (206)  and  Westermarck  (28).  In  the  Andaman  Islands  a  man 
and  woman  remained  together  only  till  their  child  was  weaned,  when  they  sep- 
arated to  seek  new  mates  (Trans.  Ethnol.  Soc.,  V.,  45). 


84  ROMANTIC   LOVE— JEALOUSY 

vate  weapons.  Should  anyone  steal  his  weapons,  or,  at  a 
higher  stage,  his  cattle  or  other  property,  he  would  be  ani- 
mated by  a  fierce  desire  for  revenge  ;  and  the  same  would  be 
the  case  if  any  man  stole  his  wife — or  her  favors.  This  sav- 
age desire  for  revenge  is  the  second  phase  of  "jealousy," 
when  women  are  guarded  like  other  property,  encroachment 
on  which  impels  the  owner  to  angry  retaliation  either  on  the 
thief  or  on  the  wife  who  has  become  his  accomplice.  Even 
among  the  lowest  races,  such  as  the  Fuegians  and  Australians, 
great  precautions  are  taken  to  guard  women  from  "  robbers." 
From  the  nature  of  the  case,  women  are  more  difficult  to 
guard  than  any  other  kind  of  "  movable  "  property,  as  they 
are  apt  to  move  of  their  own  accord.  Being  often  married 
against  their  will,  to  men  several  times  their  age,  they  are 
only  too  apt  to  make  common  cause  with  the  gallant.  Powers 
relates  that  among  the  California  Indians,  a  woman  was 
severely  punished  or  even  killed  by  her  husband  if  seen  in 
company  with  another  man  in  the  woods  ;  and  an  Australian 
takes  it  for  granted,  says  Curr,  "that  his  wife  has  been  un- 
faithful to  him  whenever  there  has  been  an  opportunity  for 
criminality."  The  poacher  may  be  simply  flogged  or  fined, 
but  he  is  apt  to  be  mutilated  or  killed.  The  "  injured  hus- 
band" reserves  the  right  to  intrigue  with  as  many  women  as 
he  pleases,  but  his  wife,  being  his  absolute  property,  has  no 
rights  of  her  own,  and  if  she  follows  his  bad  example  he  muti- 
lates or  kills  her  too. 


HORRIBLE   PUNISHMENTS 

Strangling,  stoning,  burning,  impaling,  flaying  alive,  tear- 
ing limb  from  limb,  throwing  from  a  tower,  burying  alive, 
disemboweling,  enslaving,  drowning,  mutilating,  are  some  of 
the  punishments  inflicted  by  savages  and  barbarians  in  all 
parts  of  the  world  on  adulterous  men  or  women.  Specifica- 
tions would  be  superfluous.  Let  one  case  stand  for  a  hundred. 
Maximilian  Prinz  zu  Wied  relates  (I.,  531,  572),  that  the  Ind- 
ians (Blackfeet),  "severely  punished  infidelity  on  the  part 
of  their  wives  by  cutting  off  their  noses.  At  Fort  Macken- 


ESSENCE   OF   TRUE   JEALOUSY  85 

zie  we  saw  a  number  of  women  defaced  in  this  hideous  man- 
ner. In  about  a  dozen  tents  we  saw  at  least  half  a  dozen 
females  thus  disfigured." 

Must  we  not  look  upon  the  state  of  mind  which  leads 
to  such  terrible  actions  as  genuine  jealousy  ?  Is  there  any 
difference  between  it  and  the  feeling  we  ourselves  know 
under  that  name  ?  There  is — a  world-wide  difference.  Take 
Othello,  who  though  a  Moor,  acts  and  feels  more  like  an 
Englishman.  The  desire  for  revenge  animates  him  too : 
"  I'll  tear  her  to  pieces,"  he  exclaimed  when  lago  slanders 
Desdemoua — "  will  chop  her  into  messes,"  and  as  for  Cassio, 

Oh,  that  the  slave  had  forty  thousand  lives ! 
One  is  too  poor,  too  weak  for  my  revenge. 


Arise,  black  vengeance  from  the  hollow  hell. 
ESSENCE   OF   TRUE   JEALOUSY 

But  this  eagerness  for  revenge  is  only  one  phase  of  his  pas- 
sion. Though  it  leads  him,  in  a  frenzy  of  despair,  to  smother 
his  wife,  it  is  yet,  even  in  his  violent  soul,  subordinate  to  those 
feelings  of  wounded  honor  and  outraged  affection  which  consti- 
tute the  essence  of  true  jealousy.  When  he  supposes  himself 
betrayed  by  his  wife  and  his  friend  he  clutches,  as  Ulrici  re- 
marks (I.,  404),  with  the  blind  despair  of  a  shipwrecked  man 
to  his  sole  remaining  property — honor  : 

"  His  honor,  as  he  thinks,  demands  the  sacrifice  of  the  lives 
of  Desdemona  and  Oassio.  The  idea  of  honor  in  those  days, 
especially  in  Italy,  inevitably  required  the  death  of  the  faith- 
less wife  as  well  as  that  of  the  adulterer.  Othello  therefore 
regards  it  as  his  duty  to  comply  with  this  requirement,  and, 
accordingly  it  is  no  lie  when  he  calls  himself  '  an  honorable 
murderer/  doing  'naught  in  hate,  but  all  in  honor/  .  .  . 
Common  thirst  for  revenge  would  have  thought  only  of  in- 
creasing the  sufferings  of  its  victim,  of  adding  to  its  own 
satisfaction.  But  how  touching,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
Othello's  appeal  to  Desdemona  to  pray  and  to  confess  her 
sins  to  Heaven,  that  he  may  not  kill  her  soul  with  her  body  ! 
Here,  at  the  moment  of  the  most  intense  excitement,  in  the 
desperate  mood  of  a  murderer,  his  love  still  breaks  forth,  and 
we  again  see  the  indestructible  nobility  of  his  soul." 


86  ROMANTIC    LOVE— JEALOUSY 

Schlegel  erred,  therefore,  when  he  maintained  that  Othello's 
jealousy  was  of  the  sensual,  Oriental  sort.  So  far  as  it  led  to 
the  murder,  it  was  ;  but  Shakspere  gave  it  touches  which 
allied  it  to  the  true  jealousy  of  the  heart  of  which  Schlegel 
himself  has  aptly  said  that  it  is  "  compatible  with  the  ten- 
derest  feeling  and  adoration  of  the  beloved  object."  Of  such 
tender  feeling  and  adoration  there  is  not  a  trace  in  the  pas- 
sion of  the  Indian  who  bites  off  his  wife's  nose  or  lower  lip  to 
disfigure  her,  or  who  ruthlessly  slays  her  for  doing  once  what 
he  does  at  will.  Such  expressions  as  "  outraged  affection/' 
or  "  alienated  affection,"  do  not  apply  to  him,  as  there  is  no 
affection  in  the  case  at  all  ;  no  more  than  in  that  of  the  old 
Persian  or  Turk  who  sews  up  one  of  his  hundred  wives  in  a 
sack  and  throws  her  into  the  river  because  she  was  starving 
and  would  eat  of  the  fruits  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  This 
Oriental  jealousy  is  often  a  "  dog-in-the-manger "  feeling. 
The  Iroquois  were  the  most  intelligent  of  North  American 
Indians,  yet  in  cases  of  adultery  they  punished  the  woman 
solely,  (( who  was  supposed  to  be  the  only  offender"  (Morgan, 
331).  Affection  is  out  of  the  question  in  such  cases,  anger  at 
a  slave's  disobedience,  and  vengeance,  being  the  predominant 
feelings.  In  countries  where  woman  is  degraded  and  en- 
slaved, as  Verplanck  remarks  (III.,  61),  "the  jealous  re- 
venge of  the  master  husband,  for  real  or  imagined  evil,  is 
but  the  angry  chastisement  of  an  offending  slave,  not  the 
terrible  sacrifice  of  Ms  own  happiness  involved  in  the  victim's 
punishment.  When  woman  is  a  slave,  a  property,  a  thing, 
all  that  jealousy  may  prompt  is  done,  to  use  Othello's  own 
distinction,  ' in  hate'  and  'not  in  love." 

Another  equally  vital  distinction  between  the  jealousy  of  sav- 
agery and  civilization  is  indicated  in  these  lines  from  Othello: 

I  had  rather  be  a  toad, 
And  live  upon  the  vapor  of  a  dungeon, 
Than  keep  a  corner  in  the  thing  I  love 
For  other's  uses. 

And  again  : 

I  had  been  happy,  if  the  general  camp, 
Pionera  and  all,  had  tasted  her  sweet  body, 
So  I  had  nothing  known. 


ABSENCE   OF   MASCULINE   JEALOUSY  87 

ABSENCE  OF  MASCULINE  JEALOUSY 

It  is  the  knowledge,  or  suspicion,  that  he  has  not  a  monop- 
oly of  his  wife  that  tortures  Shakspere's  Othello,  and  consti- 
tutes the  essence  of  his  jealousy,  whereas  a  savage  is  his  exact 
antipode  in  that  respect ;  he  cares  not  a  straw  if  the  whole 
camp  shares  the  embraces  of  his  wife — provided  he  knoius  it  and 
is  rewarded  for  it.  Wounded  pride,  violated  chastity,  and 
broken  conjugal  vows — pangs  which  goad  us  into  jealousy — are 
considerations  unknown  to  him.  In  other  words,  his  "jeal- 
ousy "  is  not  a  solicitude  for  marital  honor,  for  wifely  purity 
and  affection,  but  simply  a  question  of  lending  his  property  and 
being  paid  for  it.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  the  Blackfeet  Indians 
referred  to  a  moment  ago,  the v  author  declares  that  while  they 
mutilated  erring  wives  by  cutting  off  their  noses  (the  Coman- 
ches  and  other  tribes,  down  to  the  Brazilian  Botocudos,  did 
the  same  thing),  they  eagerly  offered  their  wives  and  daughters 
in  exchange  for  a  bottle  of  whiskey.  In  this  respect,  too,  this 
case  is  typical.  Sutherland  found  (I.,  184)  that  in  regard 
to  twenty-one  tribes  of  Indians  out  of  thirty-eight  there  was 
express  record  of  unlimited  intercourse  before  marriage  and 
the  loaning  or  exchanging  of  wives.  In  seventeen  he  could 
not  get  express  information,  and  in  only  four  was  it  stated 
that  a  chaste  girl  was  more  esteemed  than  an  unchaste  one. 
In  the  chapter  on  Indifference  to  Chastity  I  cited  testi- 
mony showing  that  in  Australia,  the  Pacific  Islands,  and 
among  aborigines  in  general,  chastity  is  not  valued  as  a  virtue. 
There  are  plenty  of  tribes  that  attempt  to  enforce  it,  but  for 
commercial,  sensual,  or  at  best,  genealogical  reasons,  not 
from  a  regard  for  personal  purity  ;  so  that  among  all  these 
lower  races  jealousy  in  our  sense  of  the  word  is  out  of  the 
question. 

Care  must  be  taken  not  to  be  imposed  on  by  deceptive  facts 
and  inaccurate  testimony.  Thus  Westermarck  says  (119)  that 
t(  in  the  Pelew  Islands  it  is  forbidden  even  to  speak  about 
another  man's  wife  or  mention  her  name.  In  short,  the  South 
Sea  Islanders  are,  as  Mr.  Macdonald  remarks,  generally  jealous 
of  the  chastity  of  their  wives."  Nothing  could  be  more  mis- 


88  ROMANTIC    LOVE— JEALOUSY 

leading  than  these  two  sentences.  The  men  are  not  jealous  of 
the  women's  chastity,  for  they  unhesitatingly  lend  them  to 
other  men  ;  they  are  "jealous"  of  them  simply  as  they  are  of 
their  other  movable  property.  As  for  the  Pelew  Islanders  in 
particular,  what  Westermarck  cites  from  Yrner  is  quite  true  ;  it 
is  also  true  that  if  a  man  beats  or  insults  a  woman  he  must 
pay  a  fine  or  suffer  the  death  penalty  ;  and  that  if  he  ap- 
proaches a  place  where  women  are  bathing  he  must  put  them 
on  their  guard  by  shouting.  But  all  these  things  are  mere 
whimsicalities  of  barbarian  custom,  for  the  Pelew  Islanders 
are  notoriously  unchaste  even  for  Polynesians.  They  have 
no  real  family  life  ;  they  have  club-houses  in  which  men  con- 
sort promiscuously  with  women  ;  and  no  moral  restraint  of 
any  sort  is  put  upon  boys  and  girls,  nor  have  they  any  idea 
of  modesty  or  decency.1  (Ploss,  IT.,  416  ;  Kotzebue,  III.,  215.) 
A  century  ago  Alexander  Mackenzie  wrote  (66)  regarding 
the  Knistenaux  or  Cree  Indians  of  the  Northwest : 

"  It  does  not  appear  .  .  .  that  chastity  is  considered 
by  them  as  a  virtue  ;  or  that  fidelity  is  believed  to  be  essen- 
tial to  the  happiness  of  wedded  life ;  though  it  sometimes 
happens  that  the  infidelity  of  a  wife  is  punished  by  the  hus- 
band with  the  loss  of  her  hair,  nose,  and  perhaps  life  ;  such 
severity  proceeds  from  its  having  been  practised  without  his 
permission  ;  for  a  temporary  exchange  of  wives  is  not  uncom- 
mon ;  and  the  offer  of  their  persons  is  considered  as  a  neces- 
sary part  of  the  hospitality  due  to  strangers. " 

Of  the  Natchez  Indians  Charlevoix  wrote  (267)  :  ' '  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  jealousy  in  these  marriages ;  on  the  contrary 
the  Natchez,  without  any  ceremony,  lend  one  another  their 
wives."  Concerning  the  Eskimos  we  read  in  Bancroft : 
"  They  have  no  idea  of  morality,  and  the  marriage  relation 
sits  so  loosely  as  to  hardly  excite  jealousy  in  its  abuse.  Fe- 
male chastity  is  held  a  thing  of  value  only  as  men  hold  prop- 

1  The  other  cases  of  "jealousy"  cited  by  Westermarck  (117-133)  are  all  nega- 
tived by  the  same  property  argument ;  to  which  he  indeed  alludes,  but  the  full 
significance  of  which  he  failed  to  grasp.  It  is  a  pity  that  language  should  be  so 
crude  as  to  use  the  same  word  jealousy  to  denote  three  such  entirely  different 
things  as  rage  at  a  rival,  revenge  for  stolen  property,  and  anguish  at  the  knowl- 
edge or  suspicion  of  violated  chastity  and  outraged  conjugal  affection.  Anthro- 
pologists have  studied  only  the  lower  phases  of  jealousy,  just  as  they  have  failed 
to  distinguish  clearly  between  lust  and  love. 


ABSENCE    OF    MASCULINE    JEALOUSY  89 

erty  in  it."  "A  stranger  is  always  provided  with  a  female 
companion  for  the  night,  and  during  the  husband's  absence 
he  gets  another  man  to  take  his  place  "(I.,  81,  80).  The 
evidence  collected  by  him  also  shows  that  the  Thlinkeets  and 
Aleuts  freely  exchanged  or  lent  their  wives.  Of  the  coast  Ind- 
ians of  Southern  Alaska  and  British  Columbia,  A.  P.  Nib- 
lack  says  (Smithson.  Rep.,  1888,  347)  :  "Jealousy  being  un- 
known amongst  the  Indians,  and  sanctioned  prostitution  a 
common  evil,  the  woman  who  can  earn  the  greatest  number 
of  blankets  or  the  largest  sum  of  money  wins  the  admiration 
of  others  for  herself  and  a  high  position  for  her  husband  by 
her  wealth."  In  the  same  government  reports  (1886,  Pt.  I.) 
C.  Willoughby  writes  of  the  Quinault  Agency  Washington 
Indians  :  "In  their  domestic  relations  chastity  seems  to 
be  almost  unknown."  Of  the  Chippewayans  Hearne  relates 
(129)  that  it  is  a  very  common  custom  among  the  men  to  ex- 
change a  night's  lodging  with  each  other's  wives.  But  this 
is  so  far  from  being  considered  as  an  act  which  is  criminal, 
that  it  is  esteemed  by  them  as  one  of  the  strongest  ties 
of  friendship  between  two  families.1  The  Hurons  and 
many  other  tribes  from  north  to  south  had  licentious  festi- 
vals at  which  promiscuous  intercourse  prevailed  betraying 
the  absence  of  jealousy.  Of  the  Tupis  of  Brazil  Southey  says 
(I.,  241)  :  "  The,  wives  who  found  themselves  neglected,  con-, 
soled  themselves  by  initiating  the  boys  in  debauchery.  The 
husbands  seem  to  have  known  nothing  of  jealousy."  The 
ancient  inhabitants  of  Venezuela  lived  in  houses  big  enough 
to  hold  one  hundred  and  sixty  persons,  and  Herrera  says  of 
them  :  "  They  observed  no  law  or  rule  in  matrimony,  but  took 
as  many  wives  as  they  would,  and  they  as  many  husbands, 
quitting  one  another  at  pleasure,  without  reckoning  any  harm 
done  on  either  part.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  jealousy 
among  them,  all  living  as  best  pleased  them,  without  taking 
offence  at  one  another." 

The  most  painstaking  research  has  failed  to  reveal  to  me  a 
single  Indian  tribe  in  North  or  South  America  that  showed  a 

1  All  these  facts,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  serve  as  further  illustrations 
to  the  chapter  How  Sentiments  Change  and  Grow. 


90  ROMANTIC    LOVE— JEALOUSY 

capacity  for  real  jealousy,  that  is,  anguish  based  on  a  sense  of 
violated  wifely  chastity  and  alienated  affection.  The  actions 
represented  as  due  to  jealousy  are  always  inspired  by  the  de- 
sire for  revenge,  never  by  the  anguish  of  disappointed  affec- 
tion ;  they  are  done  in  hate,  not  in  love.  A  chief  who  kills 
or  mutilates  one  of  his  ten  wives  for  consorting  with  another 
man  without  his  consent,  acts  no  more  from  jealousy,  prop- 
erly so  called,  than  does  a  father  who  shoots  the  seducer  of 
his  daughter,  or  a  Western  rnob  that  lynches  a  horse-thief. 
Among  the  Australian  aborigines  killing  an  intriguing  wife 
is  an  every-day  occurrence,  though  "  chastity  as  a  virtue  is 
absolutely  unknown  amongst  all  the  tribes  of  which  there  are 
records,"  as  one  of  the  best  informed  authorities,  J.  D.  Wood, 
tells  us  (403).  Detailed  evidence  that  the  same  is  true  of  the 
aborigines  of  all  the  continents  will  be  given  in  later  chap- 
ters. The  natives  usually  share  their  females  both  before  and 
after  marriage  ;  monopoly  of  body  and  soul — of  which  true 
jealousy  is  the  guardian — is  a  conception  beyond  .their  moral 
horizon.  A  few  more  illustrations  may  be  added. 

Burton  (T.  T.  G.  L.,  II.,  27)  cites  a  writer  who  says  that 
the  natives  of  Sao  Paulo  had  a  habit  of  changing  wives  for  a 
time,  "  alleging,  in  case  of  reproof,  that  they  are  not  able  to 
eat  always  of  the  same  dish."  Holub  testifies  (II.,  83)  that  in 
South  Africa  jealousy  "  rarely  shows  itself  very  prominent- 
ly ; "  and  he  uses  the  word  in  the  widest  sense.  The  fierce 
Masai  lend  their  wives  to  guests.  The  Mpongwe  of  the  Ga- 
boon River  send  out  their  wives — with  a  club  if  necessary — to 
earn  the  wages  of  shame  (Campiegne,  192).  In  Madagascar 
Ellis  (137)  found  sensuality  gross  and  universal,  though  con- 
cealed. Unchastity  in  either  sex  was  not  regarded  as  a  vice, 
and  on  the  birth  of  the  king's  daughter  "the  whole  capital 
was  given  up  to  promiscuous  debauchery."  According  to 
Mrs.  French  Sheldon  (Anth.  Inst.,  XXL,  360),  all  along 
the  east  coast  of  Africa  no  shame  attaches  to  unchastity  be- 
fore marriage.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  in  all  such  cases 
punishment  of  a  wife  cannot  be  prompted  by  real  jealousy 
for  her  "  chastity."  It  is  always  a  question  of  proprietorship. 
Cameron  relates  (Across  Africa,  II.,  Chap.  IV.)  that  in  Urua 


ABSENCE   OF   MASCULINE   JEALOUSY  91 

the  chief  boasted  that  he  exercised  a  right  to  any  woman 
who  might  please  his  fancy,  when  on  his  journeys  about  the 
country.  "  Morals  are  very  lax  throughout  the  country,  and 
wives  are  not  thought  badly  of  for  being  unfaithful  ;  the 
worst  they  may  expect  being  severe  chastisement  from 
the  injured  husband.  But  he  never  uses  excessive  violence 
for  fear  of  injuring  a  valuable  piece  of  household  furniture." 
When  Du  Chaillu  travelled  through  Ashango  Land  King 
Quenqueza  rose  to  receive  him.  "  With  the  figurative  po- 
liteness of  a  negro  chief,  he  assured  me  that  his  town,  his 
forests,  his  slaves,  his  wives,  were  mine  (he  was  quite  sincere 
with  regard  to  the  last")  (19). 

Asia  affords  many  instances  of  the  absence  of  jealousy. 
Marco  Polo  already  noted  that  in  Thibet,  when  travellers  ar- 
rived at  a  place,  it  was  customary  to  distribute  them  in  the 
houses,  making  them  temporary  masters  of  all  they  contained, 
including  the  women,  while  their  husbands  meanwhile  lodged 
elsewhere.  In  Kamtschatka  it  was  considered  a  great  insult 
if  a  guest  refused  a  woman  thus  offered  him.  Most  astound- 
ing of  all  is  what  G.  .R.  Robertson  relates  of  the  Kaffirs  of 
Hindu-Kush  (553)  : 

"  When  a  woman  is  discovered  in  an  intrigue,  a  great  outcry 
is  made,  and  the  neighbors  rush  to  the  scene  with  much 
laughter.  A  goat  is  sent  for  on  the  spot  for  a  peace-making 
feast  between  the  gallant  and  the  husband.  Of  course  the 
neighbors  also  partake  of  the  feast ;  the  husband  and  wife 
both  look  very  happy,  and  so  does  every  one  else  except  the 
lover,  who  has  to  pay  for  the  goat,  and  in  addition  will  have 
to  pay  six  cows  later  on." 

Here  we  see  a  great  value  attached  apparently  to  conjugal 
fidelity,  but  in  reality  an  utter  and  ludicrous  indifference  to  it. 

Asia  is  also  the  chief  home  of  polyandry,  though,  as  we  saw 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  this  custom  has  prevailed  on  other 
continents  too.  The  cases  there  cited  to  show  the  absence  of 
monopoly  also  prove  the  absence  of  jealousy.  The  effect  of 
polyandry  is  thus  referred  to  by  Colonel  King  (23)  : 

"  A  Toda  woman  often  has  three  or  four  husbands,  who 
are  all  brothers,  and  with  each  of  whom  she  cohabits  a  month. 


92  ROMANTIC   LOVE— JEALOUSY 

at  a  time.  What  is  more  singular,  such  men  as,  by  the 
paucity  of  women  among  the  tribe,  are  prevented  from  ob- 
taining a  share  in  a  wife,  are  allowed,  with  the  permission  of 
the  fraternal  husbands,  to  become  temporary  partners  with 
them.  Notwithstanding  these  singular  family  arrangements, 
the  greatest  harmony  appears  to  prevail  among  all  parties — 
husbands,  wives,  and  lovers/' 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  leading  to  the  strange 
custom  of  marrying  one  woman  to  several  men — poverty,  the 
desire  to  reduce  the  population  in  mountainous  regions,  scar- 
city of  women  due  to  female  infanticide,  the  need  of  protection 
of  a  woman  during  the  absence  of  one  husband — the  fact  stares 
us  in  the  face  that  a  race  of  men  who  calmly  submit  to  such  a 
disgusting  practice  cannot  know  jealousy.  So,  too,  in  the  cases 
of  jus  pritnce  noctis  (referred  to  in  the  chapter  on  Indiffer- 
ence to  Chastity),  where  the  men  not  only  submitted  to  an 
outrage  so  damnable  to  our  sense  of  honor,  affection,  and 
monopoly,  but  actually  coveted  it  as  a  privilege  or  a  religious 
blessing  and  paid  for  it  accordingly.  Note  once  more  how 
the  sentiments  associated  with  women  and  love  change  and 
grow. 

Petherick  says  (151)  that  among  the  Hassangeh  Arabs, 
marriages  are  valid  only  three  or  four  days,  the  wives  being 
free  the  rest  of  the  time  to  make  other  alliances.  The 
married  men,  far  from  feeling  this  a  grievance,  "  felt  them- 
selves highly  flattered  by  any  attentions  paid  to  their  better 
halves  during  their  free-and-easy  days.  They  seem  to  take 
such  attentions  as  evidence  that  their  wives  are  attractive/' 
A  readiness  to  forgive  trespasses  for  a  consideration  is  widely 
prevalent.  Powers  says  that  with  the  California  Indians  "  no 
adultery  is  so  flagrant  but  the  husband  can  be  placated  with 
money,  at  about  the  same  rate  that  would  be  paid  for  mur- 
der." The  Tasmanians  illustrate  the  fact  that  the  same 
tribes  that  are  the  most  ferocious  in  the  punishment  of  secret 
amours — that  is,  infringements  on  their  property  rights — are 
often  the  most  liberal  in  lending  their  wives.  As  Bonwick 
tells  us  (72),  they  felt  honored  if  white  men  paid  attention  to 
them.  A  circumstance  which  seems  to  have  puzzled  some 
naive  writers :  that  Australians  and  Africans  have  been 


PERSIAN   AND   GREEK   JEALOUSY  93 

known  to  show  less  "  jealousy"  of  whites  than  of  their  own 
countrymen,  finds  an  easy  explanation  in  the  greater  ability 
of  the  white  man  to  pay  for  the  husband's  complaisance.  In 
some  cases*  in  the  absence  of  a  fine,  the  husband  takes  his 
revenge  in  other  ways,  subjecting  the  culprit's  wife  to  the 
same  outrage  (as  among  natives  of  Guiana  and  New  Cale- 
donia) or  delivering  his  own  guilty  (or  rather  disobedient) 
wife  to  young  men  (as  among  the  Ormihas)  and  then  abandon- 
ing her.  The  custom  of  accepting  compensation  for  adultery 
prevailed  also  among  Dyaks,  Mandingoes,  Kaffirs,  Mongoli- 
ans, Pahari  and  other  tribes  of  India,  etc.  Falkner  says 
(126)  that  among  the  Patagonians  in  cases  of  adultery  the 
wife  is  not  blamed,  but  the  gallant  is  punished  "  unless  he 
atones  for  the  injury  by  some  valuable  present.  They  have 
so  little  decency  in  this  respect,  that  oftentimes,  at  the  com- 
mand of  the  wizards,  they  superstitiously  send  their  wives  to 
the  woods  to  prostitute  themselves  to  the  fir-st  person  they 
meet." 

PERSIAN   AND    GREEK   JEALOUSY 

Enough  has  been  said  to  prove  the  incorrectness  of  Wester- 
marck's  assertion  (515)  that  the  lack  of  jealousy  is  "  a  rare  ex- 
ception in  the  human  race."  Real  jealousy,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  is  unknown  to  the  lower  races,  and  even  the  feeling  of 
revenge  that  passes  by  that  name  is  commonly  so  feeble  as  to 
be  obliterated  by  compensations  of  a  more  or  less  trifling 
kind.  When  we  come  to  a  stage  of  civilization  like  that 
represented  by  Persians  and  other  Orientals,  or  by  the  an- 
cient Greeks,  we  find  that  men  are  indeed  no  longer  willing 
to  lend  their  wives.  They  seem  to  have  a  regard  for  chas- 
tity and  a  desire  for  conjugal  monopoly.  Other  important 
traits  of  modern  jealousy  are,  however,  still  lacking,  notably 
affection.  The  punishments  are  hideously  cruel ;  they  are 
still  inflicted  "in  hate,  not  in  love."  In  other  words,  the 
jealousy  is  not  yet  of  the  kind  which  may  form  an  ingredient 
of  love.  Its  essence  is  still  "  bloody  thoughts  and  revenge." 

Reich  cites  (256)  a  typical  instance  of  Oriental  ferocity  to- 
ward an  erring  wife,  from  a  book  by  J.  J.  Strauss,  who  relates 


94  ROMANTIC   LOVE— JEALOUSY 

that  on  June  9,  1671,  a  Persian  avenged  himself  on  his  wife 
for  a  trespass  by  flaying  her  alive,  and  then,  as  a  warning  to 
other  women,  hanging  up  her  skin  in  the  house.  Strauss 
saw  with  his  own  eyes  how  the  flayed  body  was  ttirowu  into 
the  street  and  dragged  out  into  a  field.  Drowning  in 
sacks,  throwing  from  towers,  and  other  fiendish  modes  of 
vengeance  have  prevailed  in  Persia  as  far  back  as  historic 
records  go  ;  and  the  women,  when  they  got  a  chance,  were  no 
better  than  the  men.  Herodotus  relates  how  the  wife  of 
Xerxes,  having  found  her  husband's  cloak  in  the  house  of 
Masista,  cut  off  his  wife's  breasts  and  gave  them  to  the  dogs, 
besides  mutilating  her  otherwise,  as  well  as  her  daughter. 

The  monogamous  Greeks  were  not  often  guilty  of  such 
atrocities,  but  their  custom  (nearly  universal  and  not  confined 
to  Athens,  as  is  often  erroneously  stated)  of  locking  up  their 
women  in  the  interior  of  the  houses,  shutting  them  off  from 
almost  everything  that  makes  life  interesting,  betrays  a  kind  of 
jealousy  hardly  less  selfish  than  that  of  the  savages  who  dis- 
posed of  their  wives  as  they  pleased.  It  practically  made  slaves 
and  prisoners  of  them,  quite  in  the  Oriental  style.  Such  a  cus- 
tom indicates  an  utter  lack  of  sympathy  and  tenderness,  not  to 
speak  of  the  more  romantic  ingredients  of  love,  such  as  adora- 
tion and  gallantry  ;  and  it  implies  a  supreme  contempt  for  and 
distrust  of,  character  in  wives,  all  the  more  reprehensible  be- 
cause the  Greeks  did  not  value  purity  per  se  but  only  for  genea- 
logical reason,  as  is  proved  by  the  honors  they  paid  to  the  dis- 
reputable hetairai.  There  are  surprisingly  few  references  to 
masculine  jealousy  in  Greek  erotic  literature.  The  typical 
Greek  lover  seems  to  have  taken  rivalry  as  blandly  as  the  hero 
of  Terence's  play  spoken  of  in  the  last  chapter,  who,  after  vari- 
ous outbursts  of  sentimentality,  is  persuaded,  in  a  speech  of 
a  dozen  lines,  to  share  his  mistress  with  a  rich  officer.  Nor 
can  I  see  anything  but  maudlin  sentimentality  in  such  con- 
ceits as  Meleager  utters  in  two  of  his  poems  (A  ntliology,  88, 
93)  in  which  he  expresses  jealousy  of  sleep,  for  its  privilege  of 
closing  his  mistress's  eyes  ;  and  again  of  the  flies  which  suck 
her  blood  and  interrupt  her  slumber.  The  girl  referred  to 
is  Zenophila,  a  common  wanton  (see  No.  90).  This  is  the 


PERSIAN   AND   GREEK   JEALOUSY  95 

sensnal  side  of  the  Greek  jealousy,  chastity  being  out  of  the 
question. 

The  purely  genealogical  side  of  Greek  masculine  jealousy 
is  strikingly  revealed  in  the  Medea  of  Euripides.  Medea  had, 
after  slaying  her  own  brother,  left  her  country  to  go  with 
Jason  to  Corinth.  Here  Jason,  though  he  had  two  children 
by  her,  married  the  daughter  of  the  King  Creon.  With  brutal 
frankness,  but  quite  in  accordance  with  the  selfish  Greek 
ideas,  he  tries  to  explain  to  Medea  the  motives  for  his  second 
marriage  :  that  they  might  all  dwell  in  comfort  instead  of 
suffering  want, 

"  and  that  I  might  rear  my  sons  as  doth  befit  my  house ; 
further,  that  I  might  be  the  father  of  brothers  for  the  chil- 
dren thou  hast  borne,  and  raise  these  to  the  same  high  rank, 
uniting  the  family  in  one — to  my  lasting  bliss.  Thou,  in- 
deed, hast  no  need  of  more  children,  but  me  it  profits  to  help 
my  present  family  by  that  which  is  to  be.  Have  I  mis- 
carried here  ?  Not  even  thou  wouldst  say  so  unless  a  rival's 
charms  rankled  in  thy  bosom.  No,  but  you  women  have 
such  strange  ideas,  that  you  think  all  is  well  so  long  as  your 
married  life  runs  smooth  ;  but  if  some  mischance  occur  to 
ruffle  your  love,  all  that  was  good  and  lovely  erst  you  reckon 
as  your  foes.  Yea,  men  should  have  begotten  children  from 
some  other  source,  no  female  race  existing;  thus  would  no 
evil  ever  have  fallen  on  mankind." 

Jason,  Greek-fashion,  looked  upon  a  woman's  jealousy  as 
mere  unbridled  lust,  which  must  not  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the 
way^of  the  men's  selfish  desire  to  secure  filial  worship  of  their 
precious  shades  after  death.  As  Benecke  remarks  (56)  :  ' '  For 
a  woman  to  wish  to  keep  her  husband  to  herself  was  a  sign  that 
she  was  at  once  unreasonable  and  lascivious."  The  women 
themselves  were  trained  and  persuaded  to  take  this  view.  The 
chorus  of  Corinthian  women  admonishes  Medea  :  "  And  if  thy 
lord  prefers  a  fresh  love,  be  not  angered  with  him  for  that  ; 
Zeus  will  judge  'twixt  thee  and  him  herein."  Medea  herself 
says  to  Jason  :  "  Hadst  thou  been  childless  still,  I  could  have 
pardoned  thy  desire  for  this  new  union."  And  again  :  "  Hadst 
thou  not  had  a  villain's  heart,  thou  shouldst  have  gained  my 
consent,  then  made  this  match,  instead  of  hiding  it  from  those 


96  ROMANTIC    LOVE— JEALOUSY 

who  loved  thee  " — a  sentiment  which  would  seem  to  us  as- 
tounding  and  inexplicable  had  we  not  became  familiar  with  it 
in  the  preceding  pages  relating  to  savages  and  barbarians,  by 
whom  what  we  call  infidelity  was  considered  unobjectionable, 
provided  it  was  not  done  secretly. 

By  her  subsequent  actions  Medea  shows  in  other  ways  that 
her  jealousy  is  entirely  of  the  primitive  sort — fiendish  revenge 
proceeding  from  hate.  Of  the  chorus  she  asks  but  one  favor  : 
"  Silence,  if  haply  I  can  some  way  or  means  devise  to  avenge 
me  on  my  husband  for  this  cruel  treatment  •/'  and  the  chorus 
agrees  :  "  Thou  wilt  be  taking  a  just  vengeance  on  thy  husband, 
Medea."  Creon,  having  heard  that  she  had  threatened  with 
mischief  not  only  Jason  but  his  bride  and  her  father,  wants 
her  to  leave  the  city.  She  replies,  hypocritically  :  "  Fear  me 
not,  Creon,  my  position  scarce  is  such  that  I  should  seek  to 
quarrel  with  princes.  Why  should  I,  for  how  hast  thou  in- 
jured me  ?  Thou  hast  betrothed  thy  daughter  where  thy  fancy 
prompted  thee.  No,  'tis  my  husband  I  hate."  But  as  soon  as 
the  king  has  left  her,  she  sends  to  the  innocent  bride  a  present 
of  a  beautifully  embroidered  robe,  poisoned  by  witchcraft.  As 
soon  as  the  bride  has  put  it  on  she  turns  pale,  foam  issues  from 
her  mouth,  her  eyeballs  roll  in  their  sockets,  a  flame  encircles 
her,  preying  on  her  flesh.  With  an  awful  shriek  she  sinks  to 
the  earth,  past  all  recognition  save  to  the  eye  of  her  father, 
who  folds  her  in  his  arms,  crying,  "Who  is  robbing  me  of 
thee,  old  as  I  am  and  ripe  for  death  ?  Oh,  my  child  !  would  I 
could  die  with  thee  ! "  And  his  wish  is  granted,  for  he  "  found 
himself  held  fast  by  the  fine-spun  robe  .  .  .  and  then 
ensued  a  fearful  struggle.  He  strove  to  rise  but  she  still  held 
him  back  ;  and  if  ever  he  pulled  with  all  his  might,  from  off 
his  bones  his  aged  flesh  he  tore.  At  last  he  gave  it  up,  and 
breathed  forth  his  soul  in  awful  suffering ;  for  he  could  no 
longer  master  the  pain."  Not  content  with  this,  Medea  cruelly 
slays  Jason's  children — her  own  flesh  and  blood — not  in  a 
frenzied  impulse,  for  she  has  meditated  that  from  the  begin- 
ning, but  to  further  glut  her  revengeful  spirit.  "  I  did  it,"  she 
says  to  Jason,  "  to  vex  thy  heart."  And  when  she  hears  of  the 
effect  of  the  garment  she  had  sent  to  his  bride,  she  implores 


PRIMITIVE   FEMININE   JEALOUSY  97 

the  messenger,  "Be  not  so  hasty,  friend,  but  tell  the  manner 
of  her  death,  for  thou  wouldst  give  me  double  joy,  if  so  they 
perished  miserably." 


PEIMITIVE   FEMINIZE    JEALOUSY 

A  passion  of  which  such  horrors  are  a  possible  outcome  may 
well  have  led  Euripides  to  write  :  "  Ah  me  !  ah  me  !  to  mortal 
man  how  dread  a  scourge  is  love  ! "  But  this  passion  is  not 
love,  or  part  of  love.  The  horrors  of  such  "jealousy"  are 
often  witnessed  in  modern  life,  but  not  where  true  love — 
affection — ever  had  its  abode.  It  is  the  jealousy  of  the  savage, 
which  still  survives,  as  other  low  phases  of  sexual  passion  do. 
The  records  of  missionaries  and  others  who  have  dwelt  among 
savages  contain  examples  of  deeds  as  foul,  as  irrational,  as  vin- 
dictive as  Medea's  ;  deeds  in  which,  as  in  the  play  of  Euripides, 
the  fury  is  vented  on  innocent  victims,  while  the  real  culprit 
escapes  with  his  life  and  sometimes  even  derives  amusement 
from  the  situation.  In  Oneota  (187-90),  Schoolcraft  relates 
the  story  of  an  Indian's  wife  who  entered  the  lodge  when  his 
new  bride  was  sitting  by  his  side  and  plunged  a  dagger  in  her 
heart.  Among  the  Fuegians  Bove  found  (131)  that  in  polyg- 
amous households  many  a  young  favorite  lost  her  life  through 
the  fury  of  the  other  wives.  More  frequently  this  kind  of 
jealousy  vents  itself  in  mutilations.  Williams,  in  his  book  on 
the  Fijians  (152),  relates  that  one  day  a  native  woman  was 
asked,  "How  is  it  that  so  many  of  you  women  are  without  a 
nose  ? "  The  answer  was  :  "It  grows  out  of  a  plurality  of 
wives.  Jealousy  causes  hatred,  and  then  the  stronger  tries  to 
cut  or  bite  off  the  nose  of  the  one  she  hates."  He  also  relates 
a  case  where  a  wife,  jealous  of  a  younger  favorite,  "  pounced 
on  her,  and  tore  her  sadly  with  nails  and  teeth,  and  injured 
her  mouth  by  attempting  to  slit  it  open."  A  woman  who  had 
for  two  years  been  a  member  of  a  polygamous  family  told 
Williams  that  contentions  among  the  women  were  endless, 
that  they  knew  no  comfort,  that  the  bitterest  hatred  prevailed, 
while  mutual  cursings  and  recriminations  were  of.  daily  oc- 
currence. When  one  of  the  wives  is  so  unfortunate  as  to  fall 


98  ROMANTIC   LOVE— JEALOUSY 

under  the  husband's  displeasure  too,  the  others  "  fall  upon 
her,  cuffing,  kicking,  scratching,  and  even  trampling  on  the 
poor  creature,  so  unmercifully  as  to  leave  her  half  dead." 
Bourne  writes  (89),  that  Patagonian  women  sometimes  "fight 
like  tigers.  Jealousy  is  a  frequent  occasion.  If  a  squaw  sus- 
pects her  liege  lord  of  undue  familiarity  with  a  rival,  she 
darts  upon  the  fair  enchantress  with  the  fury  of  a  wild  beast ; 
then  ensues  such  a  pounding,  scratching,  hair-pulling,  as  beg- 
gars description."  Meanwhile  the  gay  deceiver  stands  at  a 
safe  distance,  chuckling  at  the  fun.  The  licentiousness  of 
these  Indians,  he  says,  is  equal  to  their  cruelty.  Powers  (238) 
gives  this  graphic  picture  of  a  domestic  scene  common  among 
the  Wintun  Indians  of  California.  A  chief,  he  says,  may  have 
two  or  more  wives,  but  the  attempt  to  introduce  a  second 
frequently  leads  to  a  fight. 

"  The  two  women  dispute  for  the  supremacy,  often  in  a 
desperate  pitched  battle  with  sharp  stones,  seconded  by  their 
respective  friends.  They  maul  each  other's  faces  with  savage 
violence,  and  if  one  is  knocked  down  her  friends  assist  her  to 
regain  her  feet,  and  the  brutal  combat  is  renewed  until  one  or 
the  other  is  driven  from  the  wigwam.  The  husband  stands 
by  and  looks  placidly  on,  and  when  all  is  over  he  accepts  the 
situation,  retaining  in  his  lodge  the  woman  who  has  conquered 
the  territory." 

ABSENCE  OF  FEMINTKE  JEALOUSY 

As  a  rule,  however,  there  is  more  bark  than  bite  in  the 
conduct  of  the  wives  of  a  polygamous  household,  as  is  proved 
by  the  ease  with  which  the  husband,  if  he  cares  to,  can  with 
words  or  presents  overcome  the  objections  of  his  first  wife  to 
new-comers ;  even,  for  instance,  in  the  case  of  such  advanced 
barbarians  as  the  Omaha  Indians,  who  are  said  to  have  actu- 
ally allowed  a  wife  to  punish  a  faithless  husband — an  excep- 
tion so  rare  as  to  be  almost  incredible.  Dorsey  says  of  the 
Omahas  (26)  : 

"  When  a  man  wishes  to  take  a  second  wife  he  always  con- 
sults his  first  wife,  reasoning  thus  with  her  :  'I  wish  you  to 
have  less  work  to  do,  so  I  think  of  taking  your  sister,  your 
aunt,  or  your  brother's  daughter  for  my  wife.  You  can  then 


ABSENCE   OF   FEMININE   JEALOUSY  99 

have  her  to  aid  you  with  your  work/  Should  the  first  wife 
refuse,  the  marr cannot  marry  the  other  woman.  Generally 
no  objection  is  offered,  if  the  second  woman  be  one  of  the 
kindred  of  the  first  wife.  Sometimes  the  wife  will  make  the 
proposition  to  her  husband  :  '  I  wish  you  to  marry  my 
brother's  daughter,  as  she  and  I  are  one  flesh." 

Concerning  the  inhabitants  of  the  Philippine  island  of 
Mindanao,  a  German  writer  says  (Zeit.  fur  Ethn.,  1885,  12)  : 
"  The  wives  are  in  no  way  jealous  of  one  another  ;  on  the 
contrary,  they  are  glad  to  get  a  new  companion,  as  that 
enables  them  to  share  their  work  with  another/' 

Schwaner  says  of  the  Borneans  that  if  a  man  takes  a  second 
wife  he  pays  to  the  first  the  batu  salci,  amounting  to  from 
sixty  to  one  hundred  guilders,  and  moreover  he  gives  her 
presents,  consisting  of  clothes,  "  in  order  to  appease  her 
completely."  In  reference  to  the  tribes  of  Western  Washing- 
ton and  Northwestern  Oregon,  Gibbs  says  (198)  :  "  The 
accession  of  a  new  wife  in  the  lodge  very  naturally  produces 
jealousy  and  discord,  and  the  first  often  returns  for  a  time  in 
dudgeon  to  her  friends,  to  be  reclaimed  by  her  husband  when 
he  chooses,  perhaps  after  propitiating  her  by  some  presents." 
Such  instances  might  be  multiplied  ad  libitum. 

In  a  still  larger  number  of  cases  primitive  woman's  objec- 
tion to  rivals  is  easily  overcome  by  the  desire  for  the  social 
position,  wealth,  and  comfort  which  polygamy  confers.  I 
have  already  cited,  in  the  chapter  on  Honorable  Polygamy, 
a  number  of  typical  incidents  showing  how  vanity,  the  desire 
to  belong  to  a  man  who  can  afford  several  wives,  or  the  wish 
to  share  the  hard  domestic  or  field  work  with  others,  often 
smothers  the  feeling  of  jealousy  so  completely  that  wives 
laugh  at  the  idea  of  having  their  husbands  all  to  themselves, 
beg  them  to  choose  other  companions,  or  even  use  their  own 
hard-earned  money  to  buy  them  for  their  husbands.  As  this 
point  is  of  exceptional  importance,  as  evidencing  radical 
changes  in  the  ideas  relating  to  sexual  relations — and  the 
resulting  feelings  themselves — further  evidence  is  admissible. 

Of  the  Plains  Indians  in  general  Colonel  Dodge  remarks 
(20)  :  "  Jealousy  would  seem  to  have  no  place  in  the  com- 


100  ROMANTIC   LOVE— JEALOUSY 

position  of  an  Indian  woman,  and  many  prefer  to  be,  even 
for  a  time,  the  favorite  of  a  man  who  already  has  a  wife  or 
wives,  and  who  is  known  to  be  a  good  husband  and  provider, 
rather  than  tempt  the  precarious  chances  of  an  untried  man/' 
And  again  :  "  I  have  known  several  Indians  of  middle  age, 
with  already  numerous  wives  and  children,  who  were  such 
favorites  with  the  sex  that  they  might  have  increased  their 
number  of  wives  to  an  unlimited  extent  had  they  been  so 
disposed,  and  this,  too,  from  among  the  very  nicest  girls  of 
the  tribe."  E.  K.  Smith,  in  his  book  on  the  Araucanians 
(213-14)  tells  of  a  Mapuche  wife  who,  when  he  saw  her, 
"  was  frequently  accompanied  by  a  younger  and  handsomer 
woman  than  herself,  whom  she  pointed  out,  with  evident 
satisfaction,  as  her  '  other  self ' — that  is,  her  husband's  wife 
number  two,  a  recent  addition  to  the  family.  Far  from  being 
dissatisfied,  or  entertaining  any  jealousy  toward  the  new- 
comer, she  said  that  she  wished  her  husband  would  marry 
again  ;  for  she  considered  it  a  great  relief  to  have  someone 
to  assist  her  in  her  household  duties  and  in  the  mainten- 
ance of  her  husband."  McLean,  who  spent  twenty-five  years 
among  the  Tacullies  and  other  Indians  of  the  Hudson  Bay 
region,  says  (301)  that  while  polygamy  prevails  "  the  most 
perfect  harmony  seems  to  subsist  among  them."  Hunter, 
who  knew  the  Missouri  and  Arkansas  Indians  well,  says  (255) 
that  "jealousy  is  a  passion  but  little  known,  and  much  less 
indulged,  among  the  Indians."  In  cases  of  polygamy  the 
wives  have  their  own  lodges,  separated  by  a  short  distance. 
They  "occasionally  visit  each  other,  and  generally  live  on 
the  most  friendly  terms."  But  even  this  separation  is  not 
necessary,  as  we  see  from  Catlin,  who  relates  (I.,  119)  that 
among  the  Mandans  it  is  common  to  see  six  or  eight  wives 
of  a  chief  or  medicine  man  "  living  under  one  roof,  and  all 
apparently  quiet  and  contented." 

In  an  article  on  the  Zulus  (Humanitarian,  March,  1897), 
Miss  Colenso  refers  to  the  fact  that  while  polygamy  is  the 
custom,  each  wife  has  her  own  hut,  wherefore  "you  have 
none  of  the  petty  jealousies  and  quarrelling  which  dis- 
tinguish the  harems  of  the  East,  among  the  Zulu  women, 


ABSENCE   OF   FEMININE   JEALOUSY  101 

who,  as  a  rule,  are  most  friendly  to  each  other,  and  the  many 
wives  of  a  great  chief  will  live  in  a  little  colony  of  huts,  each 
mistress  in  her  own  house  and  family,  and  interchanging 
friendly  visits  with  the  other  ladies  similarly  situated."  But 
in  Africa,  too,  separation  is  not  essential  to  secure  a  peaceful 
result.  Paulitschke  (B.  E.  A.  S.,  30)  reports  that  among 
the  Somali  polygamy  is  customary,  two  wives  being  frequent, 
and  he  adds  that  "  the  wives  live  together  in  harmony  and 
have  their  household  in  common."  Among  the  Abyssinian 
Arabs,  Sir  Samuel  Baker  found  (127)  that  "  concubinage  is 
not  considered  a  breach  of  morality  ;  neither  is  it  regarded 
by  the  legitimate  wives  with  jealousy."  Chillie  (Centr.  Afr., 
158),  says  of  the  Landamas  and  Nalous  :  "  It  is  very  remark- 
able that  good  order  and  perfect  harmony  prevail  among  all 
these  women  who  are  called  to  share  the  same  conjugal 
couch."  The  same  writer  says  of  the  polygamous  Foulahs 
(224)  :  "In  general  the  women  appear  very  happy,  and  by 
no  means  jealous  of  each  other,  except  when  the  husbands 
make  a  present  to  one  without  giving  anything  to  the  rest." 

Note  the  last  sentence  ;  it  casts  a  strong  light  on  our  prob- 
lem. It  suggests  that  even  where  a  semblance  of  jealousy  is 
manifested  by  such  women  it  may  often  be  an  entirely  dif- 
ferent thing  from  the  jealousy  we  associate  with  love  ;  envy, 
greed,  or  rivalry  being  more  accurate  terms  for  it.  Here  is 
another  instance  in  point.  Drake,  in  his  work  on  the  Indians 
of  the  United  States  has  the  following  (I.,  178)  : 

"  Where  there  is  a  plurality  of  wives,  if  one  gets  finer 
goods  than  the  others,  there  is  sure  to  be  some  quarrelling 
among  the  women  ;  and  if  one  or  two  of  them  are  not  driven 
off,  it  is  because  the  others  have  not  strength  enough  to  do 
so.  The  man  sits  and  looks  on,  and  lets  the  women  fight  it 
out.  If  the  one  he  loves  most  is  driven  off,  he  will  go  and 
stay  with  her,  and  leave  the  others  to  shift  for  themselves 
awhile,  until  they  can  behave  better,  as  he  says." 

The  Eev.  Peter  Jones  gives  this  description  (81)  of  a  fight 
he  witnessed  between  the  two  wives  of  an  0  jib  way  chief  : 

"  The  quarrel  arose  from  the  unequal  distribution  of  a  loaf 
of  bread  between  the  children.  The  husband  being  absent, 


102  ROMANTIC   LOVE--JEALOUSY 

the  wife  who  had  brought  the  bread  to  the  wigwam  gave  a 
piece  of  it  to  each  child,  but  the  best  and  largest  portion  to 
her  own.  Such  partiality  immediately  led  to  a  quarrel.  The 
woman  who  brought  the  bread  threw  the  remainder  in  anger 
to  the  other  ;  she  as  quickly  cast  it  back  again  ;  in  this  fool- 
ish way  they  kept  on  for  some  time,  till  their  fury  rose  to 
such  a  height'  that  they  at  length  sprang  at  one  another, 
catching  hold  of  the  hair  of  the  head  ;  and  when  each  had 
uprooted  a  handful  their  ire  seemed  satisfied." 

To  make  clear  the  difference  between  such  ebullitions  of 
temper  and  the  passion  properly  called  jealousy,  let  us  briefly 
sum  up  the  contents  of  this  chapter.  In  its  first  stage  it  is  a 
mere  masculine  rage  in  presence  of  a  rival.  An  Australian  fe- 
male in  such  a  case  calmly  goes  off  with  the  victor.  A  savage 
looks  upon  his  wife,  not  as  a  person  having  rights  and  feel- 
ings of  her  own,  but  as  a  piece  of  property  which  he  has 
stolen  or  bought,  and  may  therefore  do  with  whatever  he 
pleases.  In  the  second  stage,  accordingly,  women  are  guarded 
like  other  movable  property,  infringement  on  which  is  fiercely 
resented  and  avenged,  though  not  from  any  jealous  regard 
for  chastity,  for  the  same  husband  who  savagely  punishes  his 
wife  for  secret  adultery,  willingly  lends  her  to  guests  as  a  mat- 
ter of  hospitality,  or  to  others  for  a  compensation.  In  some 
cases  the  husband's  " wounded  feelings"  may  be  cured  by 
the  payment  of  a  fine,  or  subjecting  the  culprit's  wife  to  in- 
dignities. At  a  higher  stage,  where  some  regard  is  paid  to 
chastity — at  least  in  the  women  reserved  for  genealogical  pur- 
poses— masculine  jealousy  is  still  of  the  sensual  type,  which 
leads  to  the  life-long  imprisonment  of  women  in  order  to  en- 
force a  fidelity  which  in  the  absence  of  true  love  could  not  be 
secured  otherwise.  As  for  the  wives  in  primitive  households, 
they  often  indulge  in  "  jealous  "  squabbles,  but  their  passion, 
though  it  may  lead  to  manifestations  of  rage  and  to  fierce  and 
cruel  fights,  is  after  all  only  skin  deep,  for  it  is  easily  over- 
come with  soft  words,  presents,  or  the  desire  for  the  social 
position  and  comfort  which  can  be  secured  in  the  house  of  a 
man  who  is  wealthy  enough  to  marry  several  women — especial- 
ly if  the  husband  is  rich  and  wise  enough  to  keep  the  women 
in  separate  lodges  ;  though  even  that  is  often  unnecessary. 


ABSENCE   OF    FEMININE   JEALOUSY  103 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding  why  primitive  fem- 
inine "jealousy/*  despite  seeming  exceptions,  should  have 
been  so  shallow  and  transient  a  feeling.  Everything  con- 
spired to  make  it  so.  From  the  earliest  times  the  men  made 
systematic  efforts  to  prevent  the  growth  of  that  passion  in 
women  because  it  interfered  with  their  own  selfish  desires, 
lie.irne  says  of  the  women  of  the  Northern  Indians  that  "  they 
are  kept  so  much  in  awe  of  their  husbands,  that  the  liber- 
ty of  thinking  is  the  greatest  privilege  they  enjoy"  (310)  ; 
and  A.  H.  Keane  (Journ.  of  Antlirop.  Inst.,  1883)  remarks 
that  while  the  Botocudos  often  indulge  in  fierce  outbreaks  of 
jealousy,  "  the  .women  have  not  yet  acquired  the  right  to  be 
jealous,  a  sentiment  implying  a  certain  degree  of  equality 
between  the  sexes. "  Everywhere  the  women  were  taught  to 
subordinate  themselves  to  the  men,  and  among  the  Hindoos 
as  among  the  Greeks,  by  the  ancient  Hebrews  as  well  as  by 
the  mediaeval  Arabs  freedom  from  jealousy  was  inculcated  as 
a  supreme  virtue.  Rachel  actually  fancied  she  was  doing  a 
noble  thing  in  giving  her  handmaids  to  Jacob  as  concubines. 
Lane  (246)  quotes  the  Arab  historian  El-Jabartee,  who  said  of 
his  first  wife  :  "  Among  her  acts  of  conjugal  piety  and  sub- 
mission was  this  that  she  used  to  buy  for  her  husband  beauti- 
ful slave  girls,  with  her  own  wealth,  and  deck  them  with 
ornaments  and  apparel,  and  so  present  them  to  him,  confi- 
dently looking  to  the  reward  and  recompense  which  she  should 
receive  [in  Paradise]  for  such  conduct." 

"  In  case  of  failure  of  an  heir,"  says  Griffis,  in  his  famous 
work  on  Japan  (557),  "  the  husband  is  fully  justified,  often 
strongly  advised  even  by  his  wife,  to  take  a  handmaid  to  raise 
up  seed  to  preserve  their  ancestral  line."  A  Persian  instance 
is  given  by  Ida  Pfeiifer  (261),  who  was  introduced  at  Tabreez 
to  the  wives  of  Behmen-Mirza,  concerning  whom  she  writes : 
"They  presented  to  me  the  latest  addition  to  the  harem — a 
plump  brown  little  beauty  of  sixteen ;  and  they  seemed  to 
treat  their  new  rival  with  great  good  nature  and  told  me  how 
much  trouble  they  had  been  taking  to  teach  her  Persian." 


104  ROMANTIC    LOVE— JEALOUSY 


JEALOUSY   PURGED   OF   HATE 

Casting  back  a  glance  over  the  ground  traversed,  we  see 
that  women  as  well  as  men — primitive,  ancient,  oriental — were 
either  strangers  to  jealousy  of  any  kind,  or  else  knew  it  only 
as  a  species  of  anger,  hatred,  cruelty,  and  selfish  sensuality ; 
never  as  an  ingredient  of  love.  Australian  women,  Lumholtz 
tells  us  (203),  "  often  have  bitter  quarrels  about  men  whom 
they  love  l  and  are  anxious  to  marry.  If  the  husband  is  un- 
faithful, the  wife  frequently  becomes  greatly  enraged."  As 
chastity  is  not  by  Australians  regarded  as  a  duty  or  a  virtue, 
such  conduct  can  only  be  explained  by  referring  to  what 
Both,  for  instance,  says  (141)  in  regard  to  the  Kalkadoon. 
Among  these,  where  a  man  may  have  as  many  as  four  or  five 
wives,  "  the  discarded  ones  will  often,  through  jealousy,  fight 
with  her  whom  they  consider  more  favored  ;  on  such  occasions 
they  may  often  resort  to  stone- throwing,  or  even  use  fire-sticks 
and  stone-knives  with  which  to  mutilate  the  genitals."  Sim- 
ilarly, various  cruel  disfigurements  of  wives  by  husbands  or 
other  wives,  previously  referred  to  as  customary  among  sav- 
ages, have  their  motive  in  the  desire  to  mar  the  charms  of  a 
rival  or  a  disobedient  conjugal  slave.  The  Indian  chief  who 
bites  off  an  intriguing  wife's  nose  or  lower  lip  takes,  moreover, 
a  cruel  delight  at  sight  of  the  pain  he  inflicts — a  delight  of 
which  he  would  be  incapable  were  he  capable  of  love.  To 
such  an  Indian,  Shakspere's  lines 

But  O,  what  damned  minutes  tells  be  o'er 

Who  dotes  yet  doubts,  suspects,  yet  strongly  loves, 

would  be  as  incomprehensible  as  a  Beethoven  symphony.  With 
his  usual  genius  for  condensation,  Shakspere  has  in  those  two 
lines  given  the  essentials  of  true  jealousy — suspicion  causing 
agony  rather  than  anger,  and  proceeding  from  love,  not  from 
hate.  The  fear,  distress,  humiliation,  anguish  of  modern 
jealousy  are  in  the  mind  of  the  injured  husband.  He  suffers 
torments,  but  has  no  wish  to  torment  either  of  the  guilty 

1  For  "love "  read  covet.  We  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  Australia  that  love 
is  a  feeling  altogether  beyond  the  mental  horizon  of  the  natives. 


A   VIRTUOUS   SIN  105 

ones.  There  are,  indeed,  even  in  civilized  countries,  hus- 
bands who  slay  erring  wives;  but  they  are  not  civilized  hus- 
bands :  like  Othello,  they  still  have  the  taint  of  the  savage 
in  them.  Civilized  husbands  resort  to  separation,  not  to 
mutilation  or  murder  ;  and  in  dismissing  the  guilty  wife, 
they  punish  themselves  more  than  her — for  she  has  shown  by 
her  actions  that  she  does  not  love  him  and  therefore  cannot 
feel  the  deepest  pang  of  the  separation.  There  is  no  anger, 
no  desire  for  revenge. 

How  comes  this  gentle  concord  in  the  world, 
That  hatred  is  so  far  from  jealousy? 

It  comes  in  the  world  through  love — through  the  fact  that 
a  man — or  a  woman- — who  truly  loves,  cannot  tolerate  even 
the  thought  of  punishing  one  who  has  held  first  place  in  his 
or  her  affections.  Modern  law  emphasizes  the  essential  point 
when  it  punishes  adultery  because  of  "  alienation  of  the  affec- 
tions. " 

A   VIRTUOUS   SIN" 

Thus,  whereas  the  ( '  jealousy  "  of  the  savage  who  is  trans- 
ported by  his  sense  of  proprietorship  to  bloody  deeds  and  to 
revenge  is  a  most  ignoble  passion,  incompatible  with  love,  the 
jealousy  of  modern  civilization  has  become  a  noble  passion, 
justified  by  moral  ideals  and  affection — "  a  kind  of  godly 
jealousy  which  I  beseech  you  call  a  virtuous  sin." 

Where  Love  reigns,  disturbing  Jealousy 
Doth  call  himself  Affection's  sentinel. 

And  let  no  one  suppose  that  by  purging  itself  of  bloody 
violence,  hatred,  and  revenge,  and  becoming  the  sentinel  of 
affection,  jealousy  has  lost  any  of  its  intensity.  On  the  con- 
trary, its  depth  is  quintupled.  The  bluster  and  fury  of  sav- 
age violence  is  only  a  momentary  ebullition  of  sensual  passion, 
whereas  the  anguish  of  jealousy  as  we  feel  it  is 

Agony  unmix'd,  incessant  gall, 
Corroding  every  thought,  and  blasting  all 
Love's  paradise. 


106  ROMANTIC    LOVE— JEALOUSY 

Anguish  of  mind  is  infinitely  more  intense  than  mere  physical 
pain,  and  the  more  cultivated  the  mind,  the  deeper  is  its  ca- 
pacity for  such  "  agony  unmixed. "  Mental  anguish  doth,  like 
a  poisonous  mineral,  gnaw  the  inwards,  and  create  a  condition 
in  which  "not  poppy,  nor  mandragora,  nor  all  the  drowsy 
syrups  of  the  world  shall  ever  medicine  "  the  victim  to  that 
sleep  which  he  enjoyed  before.  His  heart  is  turned  to  stone  ; 
he  strikes  it  and  it  hurts  his  hand.  Trifles  light  as  air  are 
proofs  to  him  that  his  suspicions  are  realities,  and  life  is  no 
longer  worth  living. 

O  now  for  ever 

Farewell  the  tranquil  mind  !  farewell  content ! 
Farewell  the  plumed  troop,  and  the  big  wars 
That  make  ambition  virtue ! 


ABNORMAL   STATES 

The  assertion  that  modern  jealousy  is  a  noble  passion  is  of 
course  to  be  taken  with  reservations.  Where  it  leads  to  mur- 
der or  revenge  it  is  a  reversion  to  the  barbarous  type,  and  apart 
from  that  it  is,  like  all  affections  of  the  mind,  liable  to  abnor- 
mal and  morbid  states.  Harry  Campbell  writes  in  the  Lancet 
(1898)  that  "  the  inordinate  development  of  this  emotion  al- 
ways betokens  a  neurotic  diathesis,  and  not  infrequently  indi- 
cates the  oncoming  of  insanity.  It  is  responsible  for  much 
useless  suffering  and  not  a  little  actual  disease."  Dr.  O'Neill 
gives  a  curious  example  of  the  latter,  in  the  same  periodical. 
He  was  summoned  to  a  young  woman  who  informed  him  that 
she  wished  to  be  cured  of  jealousy  :  "  I  am  jealous  of  my 
husband,  and  if  you  do  not  give  me  something  I  shall  go  out 
of  my  mind."  The  husband  protested  his  innocence  and  de- 
clared there  was  no  cause  whatever  for  her  accusations  : 

"  The  wife  persisted  in  reiterating  them  and  so  the  wrangle 
went  011  till  suddenly  she  fell  from  her  chair  on  the  floor  in  a 
fit,  the  spasmodic  movements  of  which  were  so  strange  and 
varied  that  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  describe  them. 
At  one  moment  the  patient  was  extended  at  full  length  with 
her  body  arched  forward  in  a  state  of  opisthotonos.  The 
next  minute  she  was  in  a  sitting  position  with  the  legs  drawn 


ABNORMAL   STATES  107 

up,  making,  while  her  hands  clutched  her  throat,  a  guttural 
noise.  Then  she  would  throw  herself  on  her  back  and 
thrust  her  arms  and  legs  about  to  the  no  small  danger  of 
those  around  her.  Then  becoming  comparatively  quiet  and 
supine  she  would  quiver  all  over  while  her  eyelids  trembled 
with  great  rapidity.  This  state  perhaps  would  be  followed 
by  general  convulsive  movements  in  which  she  would  put 
herself  into  the  most  grotesque  postures  and  make  the  most 
unlovely  grimaces.  At  last  the  fit  ended,  and  exhausted  and  in 
tears  she  was  put  to  bed.  The  patient  was  a  lithe,  muscular 
woman  and  to  restrain  her  movements  during  the  attack  with 
the  assistance  at  hand  was  a  matter  of  impossibility,  so  all 
that  could  be  done  was  to  prevent  her  injuring  herself  and  to 
sprinkle  her  freely  with  cold  water.  The  after-treatment 
was  more  geographical  than  medical.  The  husband  ceased 
doing  business  in  a  certain  town  where  the  object  of  his  wife's 
suspicions  lived. " 

I  have  been  told  by  a  perfectly  healthy  married  woman  that 
when  jealous  of  her  husband  she  felt  a  sensation  as  of  some 
liquid  welling  up  in  her  throat  and  suffocating  her.  Pride 
came  into  play  in  part ;  she  did  not  want  others  to  think  that 
her  husband  preferred  an  ignorant  girl  to  her — a  woman  of 
great  physical  and  mental  charm. 

Such  jealousy,  if  unfounded,  may  be  of  the  "  self-harm- 
ing" kind  of  which  one  of  Shakspere's  characters  exclaims 
"Fie!  beat  it  hence!"  Too  often,  however,  women  have 
cause  for  jealousy,  as  modern  civilized  man  has  not  over- 
come the  polygamous  instincts  he  has  inherited  from  his 
ancestors  since  time  immemorial.  But  whereas  cause  for 
feminine  jealousy  has  existed  always,  the  right  to  feel  it  is  a 
modern  acquisition.  Moreover,  while  Apache  wives  were 
chaste  from  fear  and  Greek  women  from  necessity,  modern 
civilized  women  are  faithful  from  the  sense  of  honor,  duty, 
affection,  and  in  return  for  their  devotion  they  expect  men  to 
be  faithful  for  the  same  reasons.  Their  jealousy  has  not  yet 
become  retrospective,  like  that  of  the  men ;  but  they  justly 
demand  that  after  marriage  men  shall  not  fall  below  the 
standard  of  purity  they  have  set  up  for  the  women,  and  they 
insist  on  a  conjugal  monopoly  of  the  affections  as  strenuously 
as  the  men  do.  In  due  course  of  time,  as  Dr.  Campbell  stig- 


108  ROMANTIC   LOVE— JEALOUSY 

gests,  "  we  may  expect  the  monogamous  instinct  in  man  to 
be  as  powerful  as  in  some  of  the  lower  animals  ;  and  feminine 
jealousy  will  help  to  bring  about  this  result  ;  for  if  women 
were  indiiferent  on  this  point  men  would  never  improve. 


JEALOUSY   IN    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

The  jealousy  of  romantic  love,  preceding  marriage,  differs 
from  the  jealousy  of  conjugal  love  in  so  far  as  there  can  be  no 
claim  to  a  monopoly  of  affection  where  the  very  existence  of 
any  reciprocated  affection  still  remains  in  doubt.  Before  the 
engagement  the  uncertain  lover  in  presence  of  a  rival  is  tor- 
tured by  doubt,  anxiety,  fear,  despair,  and  he  may  violently 
hate  the  other  man,  though  (as  I  know  from  personal  experi- 
ence) not  necessarily,  feeling  that  the  rival  has  as  much  claim 
to  the  girl's  attention  as  he  has.  Duels  between  rival  lovers 
are  not  only  silly,  but  are  an  insult  to  the  girl,  to  whom 
the  choice  ought  to  be  submitted  and  the  verdict  accepted 
manfully.  A  man  who  shoots  the  girl  herself,  because  she 
loves  another  and  refuses  him,  puts  himself  011  a  level  be- 
low the  lowest  brute,  and  cannot  plead  either  true  love  or  true 
jealousy  as  his  excuse.  After  the  engagement  the  sense  of 
monopoly  and  the  consciousness  of  plighted  troth  enter  into 
the  lover's  feelings,  and  intruders  are  properly  warded  off 
with  indignation.  In  romantic  jealousy  the  leading  role  is 
played  by  the  imagination ;  it  loves  to  torture  its  victim  by 
conjuring  visions  of  the  beloved  smiling  on  a  rival,  encircled 
by  his  arm,  returning  his  kisses.  Everything  feeds  his  sus- 
picions ;  he  is  "dwelling  in  a  continual  Alarum  of  jealousy." 
Oft  his  jealousy  "shapes  faults  that  are  not"  and  he  taints 
his  heart  and  brain  with  needless  doubt.  "  Ten  thousand 
fears  invented  wild,  ten  thousand  frantic  views  of  horrid 
rivals,  hanging  on  the  charms  for  which  he  melts  in  fond- 
ness, eat  him  up."  Such  passion  inflames  love  but  corrodes 
the  soul.  In  perfect  love,  as  I  said  at  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter,  jealousy  is  potential  only,  not  actual. 


WOMEN   WHO   WOO  109 

IV.     COYNESS 

When  a  man  is  in  love  he  wears  his  heart  on  his  sleeve  and 
feels  eager  to  have  the  beloved  see  how  passionately  it  throbs 
for  her.  When  a  girl  is  in  love  she  tries  to  conceal  her  heart 
in  the  innermost  recesses  of  her  bosom,  lest  the  lover  discover 
her  feelings  prematurely.  In  other  words,  coyness  is  a  trait 
of  feminine  love — the  only  ingredient  of  that  passion  which 
is  not,  to  some  extent,  common  to  both  sexes.  "  The  cruel 
nymph  well  knows  to  feign,  ...  coy  looks  and  cold  dis- 
dain/7 sang  Gay  ;  and  "  what  value  were  there  in  the  love  of 
the  maiden,  were  it  yielded  without  coy  delay  ?  "  asks  Scott. 

'Tis  ours  to  be  forward  and  pushing ; 
'Tis  yours  to  affect  a  disdain, 

Lady  Montagu  makes  a  man  say,  and  Eichard  Savage  sings : 

You  love ;  yet  from  your  lover's  wish  retire ; 
Doubt,  yet  discern;  deny,  and  yet  desire. 
Such,  Polly,  are  your  sex— part  truth,  part  fiction, 
Some  thought,  much  whim,  and  all  a  contradiction. 

"Part  truth,  part  fiction;7'  the  girl  romances  regarding 
her  feelings ;  her  romantic  love  is  tinged  with  coyness. 
"  She  will  rather  die  than  give  any  sign  of  affection/7  says 
Benedick  of  Beatrice  ;  and  in  that  line  Shakspere  reveals 
one  of  the  two  essential  traits  of  genuine  modern  coyness — 
dissemblance  of  feminine  affection. 

Was  coyness  at  all  times  an  attribute  of  femininity,  or  is  it 
an  artificial  product  of  modern  social  conditions  and  culture? 
Is  coyness  ever  manifested  apart  from  love,  or  does  its  pres- 
ence prove  the  presence  of  love  ?  These  two  important  ques- 
tions are  to  be  answered  in  the  present  section. 

WOMEN   WHO   WOO 

The  opinion  prevails  that  everywhere  and  always  the  first 
advances  were  made  by  the  men,  the  women  being  passive, 
and  coyly  reserved.  This  opinion — like  many  other  notions 
regarding  the  relations  of  the  sexes — rests  on  ignorance,  pure 


110  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

ignorance.  In  collecting  the  scattered  facts  bearing  on  this 
subject  I  have  been  more  and  more  surprised  at  the  number  of 
exceptions  to  the  rule,  if,  indeed,  rule  it  be.  Not  only  are 
there  tribes  among  whom  women  must  propose — as  in  the 
Torres  Straits  Islands,  north  of  Australia,  and  with  the  Garos 
of  India,  concerning  whom  interesting  details  will  be  given  in 
later  chapters  ;  but  among  many  other  savages  and  barbarians 
the  women,  instead  of  repelling  advances,  make  them. 

"  In  all  Polynesia/' says  Gerland  (VI.,  127),  "it  was  a 
common  occurrence  that  the  women  wooed  the  men/'  "  A 
proposal  of  marriage,"  writes  Gill  (Savage  Life  in  Polynesia, 
II.),  "may  emanate  with  propriety  from  a  woman  of  rank  to 
an  equal  or  an  inferior."  In  an  article  on  Fijian  poetry  (731- 
53),  Sir  Arthur  Gordon  cites  the  following  native  poem  : 

The  girls  of  Vunivanua  all  had  lovers, 

But  I,  poor  I,  had  not  even  one. 

Yet  I  fell  desperately  in  love  one  day, 

My  eye  was  filled  with  the  beauty  of  Vasunilawedua. " 

She  ran  along  the  beach,  she  called  the  canoe-men. 

She  is  conveyed  to  the  town  where  her  beloved  dwells. 

Na  Ulumatua  sits  in  his  canoe  unfastening  its  gear. 

He  asks  her,  "  Why  have  you  come  here,  Sovanalasikula?  " 

u  They  have  been  falling  in  love  at  Vunivanua,"  she  answers; 

"  I,  too,  have  fallen  in  love.     I  love  your  lovely  son,  Vasunilawedua  " 

Na  Ulumatua  rose  to  his  feet.  He  loosened  a  tambua  [whale's  tooth]  from 
the  canoe. 

u  This,"  he  said,  presenting  it  to  her,  "  is  my  offering  to  you  for  your  re- 
turn. My  son  cannot  wed  you,  lady." 

Tears  stream  from  her  eyes,  they  stream  down  on  her  breast. 

u  Let  me  only  live  outside  his  house,"  she  says; 

"  I  will  sleep  upon  the  wood-pile.  If  I  may  only  light  his  seluka  [cigar- 
rette]  for  him,  I  shall  rejoice. 

If  I  may  only  hear  his  voice  from  a  distance,  it  will  suffice.  Life  will  be 
pleasant  to  me." 

Na  Ulumatua  replied,  "  Be  magnanimous,  lady,  and  return. 

We  have  many  girls  of  our  own.     Return  to  your  own  land. 

Vasunilawedua  cannot  wed  a  stranger." 

Sovanalasikula  went  away  crying. 

She  returned  to  her  own  town,  forlorn. 

Her  life  was  sadness. 

la  nam  bosulu. 


WOMEN  WHO   WOO  111 

Tregear  (102)  describes  the  "  wooing  house"  in  which  New 
Zealand  girls  used  to  stand  up  in  the  dark  and  say  :  "I  love 
so-and-so,  I  want  him  fora  husband  ;  "  whereupon  the  chosen 
lover,  if  willing,  would  say  yes,  or  cough  to  signify  his  assent. 
Among  the  Pueblo  Indians  "  the  usual  order  of  courtship  is 
reversed  ;  when  a  girl  is  disposed  to  marry,  she  does  not  wait 
for  a  young  man  lo  propose  to  her,  but  selects  one  to  her  own 
liking  and  consults  her  father,  who  visits  the  parents  of  the 
youth  and  acquaints  them  with  his  daughter's  wishes.  It 
seldom  happens  that  any  objections  to  the  match  are  made  " 
(Bancroft,  I.,  547)  ;  and  concerning  the  Spokane  Indians  the 
same  writer  says  (276)  that  a  girl  "  may  herself  propose  if  she 
wishes."  Among  the  Moquis,  "instead  of  the  swain  asking 
the  hand  of  the  fair  one,  she  selects  the  young  man  who  is  to 
her  fancy,  and  then  her  father  proposes  the  match  to  the  sire 
of  the  lucky  youth  "  (Schoolcraft,  IV.,  86).  Among  the  Da- 
riens,  says  Heriot  (325),  "  it  is  considered  no  mark  of  for- 
wardness" in  a  woman  "openly  to  avow  her  inclination, "and 
in  Paraguay,  too,  women  were  allowed  to  propose  (Moore, 
261).  Indian  girls  of  the  Hudson  River  region  "  were  not 
debarred  signifying  their  desire  to  enter  matrimonial  life. 
When  one  of  them  wished  to  be  married,  she  covered  her  face 
with  a  veil  and  sat  covered  as  an  indication  of  her  desire.  If 
she  attracted  a  suitor,  negotiations  were  opened  with  parents 
or  friends,  presents  given,  and  the  bride  taken  "  (Ruttenber). 

A  comic  mode  of  catching  a  husband  is  described  in  an 
episode  from  the  tale  "  Owasso  and  Wayoond  "  (Schoolcraft, 
A.  R.,  II.,  210-11)  : 

"  Manjikuawis  was  forward  in  her  advances  toward  him. 
He,  however,  paid  no  attention  to  it,  and  shunned  her.  She 
continued  to  be  very  assiduous  in  attending  to  his  wants, 
such  as  cooking  and  mending  his  mocassins.  She  felt  hurt 
and  displeased  at  his  indifference,  and  resolved  to  play  him 
a  trick.  Opportunity  soon  offered.  The  lodge  was  spacious, 
and  she  dug  a  hole  in  the  ground,  where  the  young  man 
usually  sat,  covering  it  very  carefully.  When  the  brothers 
returned  from  the  chase  the  young  man  threw  himself  down 
carelessly  at  the  usual  place,  and  fell  into  the  cavity,  his 
head  and  feet  remaining  out,  so  that  he  was  unable  to  ex- 


112  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

tricate  himself.  '  Ha  !  ha  ! '  cried  Manjikuawis,  as  she 
helped  him  out,  '  you  are  mine,  I  have  caught  you  at  last, 
and  I  did  it  on  purpose/  A  smile  came  over  the  young 
man's  face,  and  he  said,  '  So  be  it,  I  will  be  yours  ; '  and  from 
that  moment  they  lived  happily  as  man  and  wife." 

It  was  a  common  thing  among  various  Indian  tribes  for 
the  women  to  court  distinguished  warriors  ;  and  though  they 
might  have  no  choice  in  the  matter,  they  could  at  any  rate 
place  themselves  temptingly  in  the  way  of  these  braves,  who, 
on  their  part,  had  no  occasion  to  be  coy,  since  they  could 
marry  all  the  squaws  they  pleased.  The  squaws,  too,  did  not 
hesitate  to  indulge,  if  not  in  two  husbands,  in  more  than  one 
lover.  Commenting  on  the  Mandans,  for  instance,  Maximilian 
Prinz  zu  Wied  declares  (II.,  127)  that  "  coyness  is  not  a  virtue 
of  the  Indian  women ;  they  often  have  two  or  three  lovers  at 
a  time."  Among  the  Pennsylvania  Indians  it  was  a  common 
thing  for  a  girl  to  make  suit  to  a  young  man.  "  Though  the 
first  address  may  be  by  the  man,  yet  the  other  is  the  most 
common.  The  squaws  are  generally  very  immodest  in  their 
words  and  actions,  and  will  often  put  the  young  men  to  the 
blush.  The  men  commonly  appear  to  be  possessed  of  much 
more  modesty  than  the  women."  (Bancroft,  II.,  140.) 

Even  a  coating  of  culture  does  not  seem  to  curb  the  young 
squaw's  propensity  to  make  the  first  advances.  Captain  R. 
H.  Pratt  (U.  8.  GeoL  and  G.  S.,  IX.,  260),  of  the  Carlisle 
School,  relates  an  amusing  story  of  a  Kiowa  young  man  who, 
under  a  variety  of  circumstances,  "  never  cared  for  girl.  '  But 
when  Laura  say  she  love  me,  then  I  began  to  care  for  girl/" 

In  his  First  Footsteps  (85,  86)  Burton  gives  a  glimpse  of 
the  "  coyness  "  of  Bedouin  women  : 

"  We  met  a  party  of  Esa  girls,  who  derided  my  color  and 
doubted  the  fact  of  my  being  a  Moslem.  The  Arabs  de- 
clared me  to  be  a  shaykh  of  shaykhs,  and  translated  to  the 
prettiest  of  the  party  an  impromptu  proposal  of  marriage. 
She  showed  but  little  coyness  and  stated  her  price  to  be  an 
Andulli  or  necklace,  a  couple  of  Tobes — she  asked  one  too 
many — a  few  handfuls  of  beads,  and  a  small  present  for  her 
papa.  She  promised,  naively  enough,  to  call  next  day  and 
inspect  the  goods.  The  publicity  of  the  town  did  not  deter 


WOMEN   WHO    WOO  113 

her,  but  the  shamefacedness  of  my  two  companions  prevented 
our  meeting  again." 

In  his  book  on  Southern  Abyssinia  Johnston  relates  how, 
while  staying  at  Murroo,  he  was  strongly  recommended  to 
follow  the  example  of  his  companions  and  take  a  temporary 
wife.  There  was  no  need  of  hunting  for  helpmates — they 
offered  themselves  of  their  own  accord.  One  of  the  girls  who 
presented  herself  as  a  candidate  was  stated  by  her  friends  to 
be  a  very  strong  woman,  who  had  already  had  four  or  five  hus- 
bands. "  I  thought  this  a  rather  strange  recommendation," 
he  adds,  "  but  it  was  evidently  mentioned  that  she  might  find 
favor  in  my  eyes/'  He  found  that  the  best  way  out  of  such  a 
dilemma  was  to  engage  the  first  old  hag  that  came  along  and 
leave  it  to  her  to  ward  off  the  others.  Masculine  coyness 
under  such  conditions  has  its  risks.  Johnston  mentions  the 
case  of  an  Arab  who,  in  the  region  of  the  Muzeguahs,  scorned 
a  girl  who  wanted  to  be  his  temporary  wife  ;  whereupon  "  the 
whole  tribe  asserted  he  had  treated  them  with  contempt  by 
his  haughty  conduct  toward  the  girl,  and  demanded  to  know 
if  she  was  not  good  enough  for  him.'*  He  had  to  give  them 
some  brass  wire  and  blue  sood  before  he  could  allay  the  na- 
tional indignation  aroused  by  his  refusal  to  take  the  girl. 
Women  have  rights  which  must  be  respected,  even  in  Africa  ! 

In  Dutch  Borneo  there  is  a  special  kind  of  "  marriage  by 
stratagem  "  called  matep.  If  a  girl  desires  a  particular  man 
he  is  inveigled  into  her  'house,  the  door  is  shut,  the  walls 
are  hung  with  cloth  of  different  colors  and  other  ornaments, 
dinner  is  served  up  and  he  is  informed  of  the  girl's  wish  to 
marry  him.  If  he  declines,  he  is  obliged  to  pay  the  value  of 
the  hangings  and  the  ornaments.  (Roth,  II.,  CLXXXI.) 

"Uncertain,  coy,  and  hard  to  please"  obviously  cannot  be 
sung  of  such  women. 

In  one  of  the  few  native  Australian  stories  on  record  the 
two  wives  of  a  man  are  represented  as  going  to  his  brother's 
hut  when  he  was  asleep,  and  imitating  the  voice  of  an  emu. 
The  noise  woke  him,  and  he  took  his  spear  to  kill  them  ; 
but  as  soon  as  he  ran  out  the  two  women  spoke  and  re- 


114  ROMANTIC    LOVE— COYNESS 

quested  him  to  be  their  husband.     (Wood's  Native  Tribes, 
210.) 

The  fact  that  Australian  women  have  absolutely  no  choice 
in  the  assignment  of  husbands,  must  make  them  inclined  to 
offer  themselves  to  men  they  like,  just  as  Indian  girls  offer 
themselves  to  noted  warriors  in  the  hope  of  thus  calling  at- 
tention to  their  personal  attractions.  As  we  shall  see  later, 
one  of  the  ways  in  which  an  Australian  wins  a  wife  is  by 
means  of  magic.  In  this  game,  as  Spencer  and  Gillen  tell 
us  (556),  the  women  sometimes  take  the  initiative,  thus  in- 
ducing a  man  to  elope  with  them. 

WERE   HEBREW   AND   GREEK    WOMEN   COY? 

The  English  language  is  a  queer  instrument  of  thought. 
While  coyness  has  the  various  meanings  of  shyness,  modest 
reserve,  bashfnlness,  shrinking  from  advances  or  familiarity, 
disdainfulness,  the  verb  "  to  coy  "  may  mean  the  exact  op- 
posite— to  coax,  allure,  entice,  woo,  decoy.  It  is  in  this  sense 
that  "coyness"  is  obviously  a  trait  of  primitive  maidens. 
What  is  more  surprising  is  to  find  in  brushing  aside  prejudice 
and  preconceived  notions,  that  among  ancient  nations  too  it 
is  in  this  second  sense  rather  than  in  the  first  that  women  are 
"  coy."  The  Hebrew  records  begin  with  the  story  of  Adam 
and  Eve,  in  which  Eve  is  stigmatized  as  the  temptress. 
Rebekah  had  never  seen  the  man  chosen  for  her  by  her 
male  relatives,  yet  when  she  was  asked  if  she  would  go  with 
his  servant,  she  answered,  promptly,  "I  will  go."  Rachel  at 
the  well  suffers  her  cousin  to  kiss  her  at  first  sight.  Ruth 
does  all  the  courting  which  ends  in  making  her  the  wife  of 
13oaz.  There  is  no  shrinking  from  advances,  real  or  feigned, 
in  any  of  these  cases  ;  no  suggestion  of  disguised  feminine 
affection ;  and  in  two  of  them  the  women  make  the  advances. 
Potiphar's  wife  is  another  biblical  case.  The  word  coy  does 
not  occur  once  in  the  Bible. 

The  idea  that  women  are  the  aggressors,  particularly  in 
criminal  amours,  is  curiously  ingrained  in  the  literature  of 
ancient  Greece.  In  the  Odyssey  we  read  about  the  fair- 


WERE    GREEK   WOMEN    COY?  115 

haired  goddess  Circe,  decoying  the  companions  of  Odysseus 
with  her  sweet  voice,  giving  them  drugs  and  potions,  making 
them  the  victims  of  swinish  indulgence  of  their  appetites. 
When  Odysseus  comes  to  their  rescue  she  tries  to  allure  him 
too,  saying,  "  Nay,  then,  put  up  your  blade  within  its  sheath, 
and  let  us  now  approach  our  bed  that  there  we  too  may  join  in 
love  and  learn  to  trust  each  other."  Later  on  Odysseus  has 
his  adventure  with  the  Sirens,  who  are  always  "  casting  a  spell 
of  penetrating  song,  sitting  within  a  meadow,"  in  order  to 
decoy  passing  sailors.  Chary bdis  is  another  divine  Homeric 
female  who  lures  men  to  ruin.  The  island  nymph  Calypso 
rescues  Odysseus  and  keeps  him  a  prisoner  to  her  charms, 
until  after  seven  years  he  begins  to  shed  tears  and  long  for 
home  "  because  the  nymph  pleased  him  no  more."  Nor  does 
the  human  Nausicaa  manifest  the  least  coyness  when  she 
meets  Odysseus  at  the  river.  Though  he  has  been  cast  on 
the  shore  naked,  she  remains,  after  her  maids  have  run  away 
alarmed,  and  listens  to  his  tale  of  woe.  Then,  after  seeing 
him  bathed,  anointed,  and  dressed,  she  exclaims  to  her  wait- 
ing maids:  "Ah,  might  a  man  like  this  be  called  my  hua- 
band,  having  his  home  here  and  content  to  stay  ; "  while  to 
him  later  on  she  gives  this  broad  hint :  "  Stranger,  farewell  ! 
when  you  are  once  again  in  your  own  land,  remember  me, 
and  how  before  all  others  it  is  to  me  you  owe  the  saving  of 
your  life." 

Nausicaa  is,  however,  a  prude  compared  with  the  enamoured 
woman  as  the  Greek  poets  habitually  paint  her.  Pausanias 
(II.,  Chap.  31),  speaking  of  a  temple  of  Peeping  Venus  says: 
"  From  this  very  spot  the  enamoured  Phaedra  used  to  watch 
Hippolytus  at  his  manly  exercises.  Here  still  grows  the 
myrtle  with  pierced  leaves,  as  I  am  told.  For  being  at  her 
wit's  ends  and  finding  no  ease  from  the  pangs  of  love,  she 
used  to  wreak  her  fury  on  the  leaves  of  this  myrtle."  Profess- 
or Rohde,  the  most  erudite  authority  on  Greek  erotic  litera- 
ture, writes  (34)  :  "  It  is  characteristic  of  the  Greek  popular 
tales  which  Euripides  followed,  in  what  might  be  called  his 
tragedies  of  adultery,  that  they  always  make  the  woman  the 
vehicle  of  the  pernicious  passion  ;  it  seems  as  if  Greek  feeling 


116  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

could  not  conceive  of  a  man  being  seized  by  an  unmanly  soft 
desire  and  urged  on  by  it  to  passionate  disregard  of  all 
human  conventions  and  laws." 


MASCULINE    COYNESS 

Greek  poets  from  Stesichorus  to  the  Alexandrians  are  fond 
of  representing  coy  men.  The  story  told  by  Athengeus 
(XIV.,  ch.  11)  of  Harpalyke,  who  committed  suicide  be- 
cause the  youth  Iphiclus  coyly  spurned  her,  is  typical  of  a 
large  class.  No  less  significant  is  the  circumstance  that  when 
the  coy  backwardness  happens  to  be  on  the  side  of  a  female, 
she  is  usually  a  woman  of  masculine  habits,  devoted  to  Di- 
ana and  the  chase.  Several  centuries  after  Christ  we  still 
find  in  the  romances  an  echo  of  this  thoroughly  Greek  senti- 
ment in  the  coy  attitude,  at  the  beginning,  of  their  youthful 
heroes.1 

The  well-known  legend  of  Sappho — who  flourished  about  a 
thousand  years  before  the  romances  just  referred  to  were 
written — is  quite  in  the  Greek  spirit.  It  is  thus  related  by 
Strabo  : 

"  There  is  a  white  rock  which  stretches  out  from  Leucas  to 
the  sea  and  toward  Cephalonia,  that  takes  its  name  from  its 
whiteness.  The  rock  of  Leucas  has  upon  it  a  temple  of 
Apollo,  and  the  leap  from  it  was  supposed  to  stop  love.  From 
this  it  is  said  that  Sappho  first,  as  Menander  says  somewhere, 
in  pursuit  of  the  haughty  Phaon,  urged  on  by  maddening 
desire,  threw  herself  from  its  far-seen  rocks,  imploring  thee 
[Apollo],  lord  and  king/' 

Four  centuries  after  Sappho  we  find  Theocritus  harping  on 
the  same  theme.  His  Enchantress  is  a  monologue  in  which 
a  woman  relates  how  she  made  advances  to  a  youth  and  won 
him.  She  saw  him  walking  along  the  road  and  was  so  smitten 
that  she  was  prostrated  and  confined  to  her  bed  for  ten  days. 
Then  she  sent  her  slave  to  waylay  the  youth,  with  these  in- 
structions :  "  If  you  see  him  alone,  say  to  him  :  '  Simaitha 

1  Rohde,  35,  38,  147.  See  his  list  of  corroborative  cases  in  the  long  footnote, 
pp.  147-148. 


MILITARISM   AND   MEDIEVAL   WOMEN        117 

desires  you/  and  bring  him  here."  In  this  case  the  youth  is 
not  coy  in  the  least ;  but  the  sequel  of  the  story  is  too  bucolic 
to  be  told  here. 

SHY   BUT   NOT   COY 

It  is  well-known  that  the  respectable  women  of  Greece,  es- 
pecially the  virgins,  were  practically  kept  under  lock  and  key 
in  the  part  of  the  house  known  as  the  gynaikonitis.  This  re- 
sulted in  making  them  shy  and  bashful — but  not  coy,  if  we 
may  judge  from  the  mirror  of  life  known  as  literature.  Eam- 
dohr  observes,  pertinently  (III.,  270)  :  "Remarkable  is  the 
easy  triumph  of  lovers  over  the  innocence  of  free-born  girls, 
daughters  of  citizens,  examples  of  which  may  be  found  in 
the  Eunuchus  and  Adelplii  of  Terence.  They  call  atten- 
tion to  the  low  opinion  the  ancients  had  of  a  woman's 
power  to  guard  her  sensual  impulses,  and  of  her  own  accord 
resist  attacks  on  her  honor."  The  Abbe  Dubois  says  the 
same  thing  about  Hindoo  girls,  and  the  reason  why  they  are 
so  carefully  guarded.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  since 
no  one  would  be  so  foolish  as  to  call  a  man  honest  who  refrains 
from  stealing  merely  because  he  has  no  opportunity,  it  is 
equally  absurd  to  call  a  woman  honest  or  coy  who  refrains 
from  vice  only  because  she  is  locked  up  all  the  time.  The 
fact  (which  seems  to  give  Westermarck  (64-65)  much  satis- 
faction), that  some  Australians,  American  Indian  and  other 
tribes  watch  young  girls  so  carefully,  does  not  argue  the  pre- 
valence of  chaste  coyness,  but  the  contrary.  If  the  girls  had 
an  instinctive  inclination  to  repel  improper  advances  it  would 
not  be  necessary  to  cage  and  watch  them.  This  inclination 
is  not  inborn,  does  not  characterize  primitive  women,  but  is  a 
result  of  education  and  culture. 


MILITARISM   AND    MEDIEVAL   WOMEN 

Greatly  as  Greeks  and  Indians  differ  in  some  respects,  they 
have  two  things  in  common — a  warlike  spirit  and  contempt 
for  women.  (i  "When  Greek  meets  Greek  then  comes  a  tug 
of  war,"  and  the  Indian's  chief  delight  is  scalp  hunting. 


118  ROMANTIC    LOVE— COYNESS 

The  Greeks,  as  Rohde  notes  (42),  "  depict  their  greatest 
heroes  as  incited  to  great  deeds  only  by  eagerness  for  battle 
and  desire  for  glory.  The  love  of  women  barely  engages  their 
attention  transiently  in  hours  of  idleness/"  Militarism  is  ever 
hostile  to  love  except  in  its  grossest  forms.  It  brutalizes  the 
men  and  prevents  the  growth  of  feminine  qualities,  coyness 
among  others.  Hence,  wherever  militarism  prevails,  we  seek 
in  vain  for  feminine  reserve.  An  interesting  illustration  of 
this  may  be  found  in  a  brochure  by  Theodor  Krabbes,  Die 
Frau  im  Altfranzosischen  Karls-Epos  (9-38).  The  author, 
basing  his  inferences  on  an  exhaustive  study  and  comparison 
of  the  Chansons  de  Geste  of  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries, 
draws  the  following  general  conclusions  : 

"  Girlish  shyness  is  not  a  trait  of  the  daughters,  least  of  all 
those  of  heathen  origin.  Masculine  tendencies  characterize 
them  from  childhood.  Fighting  pleases  them  and  they  like 
to  look  on  when  there  is  a  battle.  .  .  .  Love  plays  an 
important  role  in  nearly  all  the  Chansons  de  Geste. 
The  woman  wooes,  the  man  grants  :  nearly  always  in  these 
epics  we  read  of  a  woman  who  loves,  rarely  of  one  who  is 
loved.  ...  In  the  very  first  hour  of  their  acquaintance 
the  girl  is  apt  to  yield  herself  entirely  to  the  chosen  knight, 
and  she  persists  in  her  passion  for  him  even  if  she  is  entirely 
repulsed.  There  is  no  more  rest  for  her.  Either  she  wooes 
him  in  person,  or  chooses  a  messenger  who  invites  the  coveted 
man  to  a  rendezvous.  The  heathen  woman  who  has  to  guard 
captured  Franks  and  who  has  given  her  heart  to  one  of  them, 
hies  herself  to  the  dungeon  and  offers  him  her  love.  She 
begs  for  his  love  in  return  and  seeks  in  every  way  to  win  it. 
If  he  resists,  she  curses  him,  makes  his  lot  less  endurable, 
withholds  his  food  or  threatens  him  with  death  until  he  is 
willing  to  accede  to  her  wishes.  If  this  has  come  to  pass  she 
overwhelms  him  with  caresses  at  the  first  meeting.  She  is 
eager  to  have  them  reciprocated  ;  often  the  lover  is  not  tender 
enough  to  please  her,  then  she  repeatedly  begs  for  kisses. 
She  embraces  him  delightedly  even  though  lie  be  in  full  armor 
and  in  presence  of  all  his  companions.  Girlish  shyness  and 
modest  backwardness  are  altogether  foreign  to  her  nature. 
.  .  .  She  never  has  any  moral  scruples.  ...  If  he  is 
unwilling  to  give  up  his  campaign,  she  is  satisfied  to  let  him 
go  the  next  morning  if  he  will  only  marry  her. 

"  The  man  is  generally  described  as  cold  in  love.     Refer- 


WHAT    MADE    WOMEN    COY?  119 

ences  to  a  knight's  desire  for  a  woman's  love  are  very  scant, 
and  only  once  do  we  come  across  a  hero  who  is  quite  in  love. 
The  young  knight  prefers  more  serious  matters  ;  his  first  de- 
sire is  to  win  fame  in  battle,  make  rich  booty.1  He  looks  on 
love  as  superfluous,  indeed  he  is  convinced  that  it  inca- 
pacitates him  from  what  he  regards  as  his  proper  life-task. 
He  also  fears  the  woman's  infidelity.  If  he  allows  her  to 
persuade  him  to  love,  he  seeks  material  gain  from  it ;  deliv- 
ery from  captivity,  property,  vassals.  .  .  .  The  lover  is 
often  tardy,  careless,  too  deficient  in  tenderness,  so  that  the 
woman  has  to  chide  him  and  invite  his  caresses.  A  rendez- 
vous is  always  brought  about  only  through  her  efforts,  and 
she  alone  is  annoyed  if  it  is  disturbed  too  soon.  Even  when 
the  man  desires  a  woman,  he  hardly  appears  as  a  wooer.  He 
knows  he  is  sure  of  the  women's  favor  ;  they  make  it  easy  for 
him  ;  he  can  have  any  number  of  them  if  he  belongs  to  a 
noble  family.  .  .  .  Even  when  the  knight  is  in  love — 
which  is  very  rare — the  first  advances  are  nearly  always  made 
by  the  woman  ;  it  is  she  who  proposes  marriage. 

"  Marriage  as  treated  in  the  epics  is  seldom  based  on  love. 
The  woman  desires  wedlock,  because  she  hopes  thereby  to 
secure  her  rights  and  better  her  chances  of  protection.  It  is 
for  this  reason  that  we  see  her  so  often  eagerly  endeavoring 
to  secure  a  promise  of  marriage. " 


WHAT   MADE   WOMEN    COY  ? 

Sufficient  evidence  has  now  been  adduced  to  make  it  clear 
that  the  first  of  the  two  questions  posed  at  the  outset  of  this 
chapter  must  be  answered  in  the  negative.  Coyness  is  not 
an  innate  or  universal  trait  of  femininity,  but  is  often  absent, 
particularly  where  man's  absorption  in  war  and  woman's 
need  of  protection  prevent  its  growth  and  induce  the  females 
to  do  the  courting.  This  being  the  case  and  war  being  the 
normal  state  of  the  lower  races,  our  next  task  is  to  ascertain 
what  were  the  influences  that  induced  woman  to  adopt  the 
habit  of  repelling  advances  instead  of  making  them.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  interesting  questions  in  sexual  psychology, 
which  has  never  been  answered  satisfactorily  ;  it  and  gains 
additional  interest  from  the  fact  that  we  find  among  the 

1  Compare  this  with  what  Rohcle  says  (42)  about  the  Homeric  heroes  and 
their  complete  absorption  in  warlike  doings. 


120  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

most  ancient  and  primitive  races  phenomena  which  resemble 
coyness  and  have  been  habitually  designated  as  such.  As  we 
shall  see  in  a  moment,  this  is  an  abuse  of  language,  confound- 
ing genuine  resistance  or  aversion  with  coyness. 

Chinese  maidens  often  feel  so  great  an  aversion  to  marriage 
as  practised  in  their  country  that  they  prefer  suicide  to  it. 
Douglas  says  (196)  that  Chinese  women  often  ask  English 
ladies,  "Does  your  husband  beat  you  ?"  and  are  surprised 
if  answered  "  No."  The  gallant  Chinaman  calls  his  wife 
his  "dull  thorn,"  and  there  are  plenty  of  reasons  apart 
from  Confucian  teachings  why  "for  some  days  before  the 
date  fixed,  the  bride  assumes  all  the  panoply  of  woe,  and 
weeps  and  wails  without  ceasing."  She  is  about  to  face  the 
terrible  ordeal  of  being  confronted  for  the  first  time  with  the 
man  who  has  been  chosen  for  her,  and  who  may  be  the  ugliest, 
vilest  wretch  in  the  world — possibly  even  a  leper,  such  cases 
being  on  record.  Douglas  (124)  reports  the  case  of  six  girls 
who  committed  suicide  together  to  avoid  marriage.  There 
exist  in  China  anti-matrimonial  societies  of  girls  and  young 
widows,  the  latter  doubtless,  supplying  the  experience  that 
serves  as  the  motive  for  establishing  such  associations. 

Descending  to  the  lowest  stratum  of  human  life  as  wit- 
nessed in  Australia,  we  find  that,  as  Meyer  asserts  (11),  the 
bride  appears  "  generally  to  go  very  unwillingly "  to  the 
man  she  has  been  assigned  to.  Lumholtz  relates  that  the 
man  seizes  the  woman  by  the  wrists  and  carries  her  off 
"  despite  her  screams,  which  can  be  heard  till  she  is  a  mile 
away."  "  The  women,"  he  says,  "  always  make  resistance  ; 
for  they  do  not  like  to  leave  their  tribe,  and  in  many  in- 
stances they  have  the  best  of  reasons  for  kicking  their  lovers." 
What  are  these  reasons  ?  As  all  observers  testify,  they  are 
not  allowed  any  voice  in  the  choice  of  their  husbands.  They 
are  usually  bartered  by  their  father  or  brothers  for  other 
women,  and  in  many  if  not  most  cases  the  husbands  assigned 
to  them  are  several  times  their  age.  Before  they  are  assigned 
to  a  particular  man  the  girls  indulge  in  promiscuous  inter- 
course, whereas  after  marriage  they  are  fiercely  guarded. 
They  may  indeed  attempt  to  elope  with  another  man  more 


CAPTURING   WOMEN  121 

suited  to  their  age,  but  they  do  so  at  the  risk  of  cruel  injury 
and  probable  death.  The  wives  have  to  do  all  the  drudgery ; 
they  get  only  such  food  as  the  husbands  do  not  want,  and  on 
the  slightest  suspicion  of  intrigue  they  are  maltreated  hor- 
ribly. Causes  enough  surely  for  their  resistance  to  oblig- 
atory marriage.  This  resistance  is  a  frank  expression  of  gen- 
uine unwillingness,  or  aversion,  and  has  nothing  in  common 
with  real  coyness,  which  signifies  the  mere  semblance  of  un- 
willingness on  the  part  of  a  woman  who  is  at  least  half-will- 
ing. Such  expressions  as  Goldsmith's  "  the  coy  maid,  half 
willing  to  be  pressed,"  and  Dryden'*s 

When  the  kind  nymph  would  coyness  feign, 
And  hides  but  to  be  found  again, 

indicate  the  nature  of  true  coyness  better  than  any  definitions. 
There  are  no  "  coy  looks,"  no  "feigning"  in  the  actions  of 
an  Australian  girl  about  to  be  married  to  a  man  who  is  old 
enough  to  be  her  grandfather.  The  "  cold  disdain  "  is  real, 
not  assumed,  and  there  is  no  "  dissemblance  of  feminine 
affection." 

CAPTUKItfG   WOMEN 

The  same  reasoning  applies  to  the  customs  attending  wife- 
capturing  in  general,  which  has  prevailed  in  all  parts  of  the 
world  and  still  prevails  in  some  regions.  To  take  one  or  two 
instances  of  a  hundred  that  might  be  cited  from  books  of 
travel  in  all  parts  of  the  world  :  Columbus  relates  that  the 
Caribs  made  the  capture  of  women  the  chief  object  of  their 
expeditions.  The  California  Indians  worked  up  their  warlike 
spirit  by  chanting  a  song  the  substance  of  which  was,  "let  us 
go  and  carry  off  girls  "  (Waitz,  IV.,  242).  Savages  everywhere 
have  looked  upon  women  as  legitimate  spoils  of  war,  desirable 
as  concubines  and  drudges.  Now  even  primitive  women  are 
attached  to  their  homes  and  relatives,  and  it  is  needless  to  say 
their  resistance  to  the  enemy  who  has  just  slain  their  father 
and  brothers  and  is  about  to  carry  them  off  to  slavery,  is  gen- 
uine, and  has  no  more  trace  of  coyness  in  it  than  the  actions 


122  ROMANTIC    LOVE— COYNESS 

of  an  American  girl  who  resists  the  efforts  of  unknown  kid- 
nappers to  drag  her  from  her  home. 

But  besides  real  capture  of  women  there  has  existed,  and 
still  exists  in  many  countries,  what  is  known  as  sham-capt- 
ure— a  custom  which  has  puzzled  anthropologists  sorely. 
Herbert  Spencer  illustrates  it  (P.  S.,  L,  §  288)  by  citing 
Crantz,  who  says,  concerning  the  Eskimos,  that  when  a 
damsel  is  asked  in  marriage,  she 

"  directly  falls  into  the  greatest  apparent  consternation,  and 
runs  out  of  doors  tearing  her  hair  ;  for  single  women  always 
affect  the  utmost  bashfulness  and  aversion  to  any  proposal  of 
marriage,  lest  they  should  lose  their  reputation  for  modesty." 

Spencer  also  quotes  Burckhardt,  who  describes  how  the 
bride  among  Sinai  Arabs  defends  herself  with  stones,  even 
though  she  does  not  dislike  the  lover  ;  "for  according  to  cus- 
tom, the  more  she  struggles,  bites,  kicks,  cries,  and  strikes, 
the  more  she  is  applauded  ever  after  by  her  own  companions." 
During  the  procession  to  the  husband's  camp  "  decency  ob- 
liges her  to  cry  and  sob  most  bitterly."  Among  the  Arau- 
canians  of  Chili,  according  to  Smith  (215)  "it  is  a  point  of 
honor  with  the  bride  to  resist  and  struggle,  however  willing 
she  may  be." 

While  conceding  that  "the  manners  of  the  inferior 
races  do  not  imply  much  coyness,"  Spencer,  nevertheless, 
thinks  "  we  cannot  suppose  coyness  to  be  wholly  absent." 
He  holds  that  in  the  cases  just  cited  coyness  is  responsible  for 
the  resistance  of  the  women,  and  he  goes  so  far  as  to  make 
this  coyness  "an  important  factor,"  in  accounting  for  the 
custom  of  marriage  by  capture  which  has  prevailed  among  so 
many  peoples  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Westermarck  de- 
clares (388)  that  this  suggestion  can  scarcely  be  disproved, 
and  Grosse  (105)  echoes  his  judgment.  To  me,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  seems  that  these  distinguished  sociologists  are  put- 
ting the  cart  before  the  horse.  They  make  the  capture  a 
sequence  of  "  coyness,"  whereas  in  truth  the  coyness  (if  it 
may  be  so  called)  is  a  result  of  capture.  The  custom  of  wife 
capture  can  be  easily  explained  without  calling  in  the  aid  of 
what  we  have  seen  to  be  so  questionable  a  thing  as  primitive 


THE   COMEDY   OF   MOCK   CAPTURE  123 

female  coyness.  Savages  capture  wives  as  the  most  coveted 
spoils  of  war.  They  capture  them,  in  other  instances,  be- 
cause polygamy  and  female  infanticide  have  disturbed  the 
equilibrium  of  the  sexes,  thus  compelling  the  young  men  to 
seek  wives  elsewhere  than  in  their  own  tribes  ;  and  the  same 
result  is  brought  about  (in  Australia,  for  instance),  by  the  old 
men's  habit  of  appropriating  all  the  young  women  by  a  system 
of  exchange,  leaving  none  for  the  young  men,  who,  therefore, 
either  have  to  persuade  the  married  women  to  elope — at  the 
risk  of  their  lives — or  else  are  compelled  to  steal  wives  else- 
where. In  another  very  large  number  of  cases  the  men  stole 
brides — willing  or  unwilling — to  avoid  paying  their  parents  for 
them. 

TfrE   COMEDY    OF   MOCK    CAPTURE 

Thus  the  custom  of  real  capture  is  easily  accounted  for. 
What  calls  for  an  explanation  is  the  sham  capture  and  resist- 
ance in  cases  where  both  the  parents  and  the  bride  are  per- 
fectly willing.  Why  should  primitive  maidens  who,  as  we 
have  seen,  are  rather  apt  than  not  to  make  amorous  advances, 
repel  their  suitors  so  violently  in  these  instances  of  mock 
capture  ?  Are  they,  after  all,  coy — more  coy  than  civilized 
maidens  ?  To  answer  this  question  let  us  look  at  one  of 
Spencer's  witnesses  more  carefully.  The  reason  Crantz  gives 
for  the  Eskimo  women's  show  of  aversion  to  marriage  is  that 
they  do  it,  "lest  they  lose  their  reputation  for  modesty." 
Now  modesty  of  any  kind  is  a  quality  unknown  to  Eskimos. 
Nansen,  Kane,  Hayes,  and  other  explorers  have  testified  that 
the  Eskimos  of  both  sexes  take  off  all  their  clothes  in  their 
warm  subterranean  homes.  Captain  Beechey  has  described 
their  obscene  dances,  and  it  is  well-known  that  they  consider 
it  a  duty  to  lend  their  wives  and  daughters  to  guests.  Some  of 
the  native  tales  collected  by  Rink  (236-37  ;  405)  indicate  most 
unceremonious  modes  of  courtship  and  nocturnal  frolics,  which 
do  not  stop  even  at  incest.  To  suppose  that  women  so  utterly 
devoid  of  moral  sensibility  could,  of  their  own  accord  and 
actuate^  by  modesty  and  bashfulness  manifest  such  a  coy 
aversion  to  marriage  that  force  has  to  be  resorted  to,  is  mani- 


124  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

festly  absurd.  In  attributing  their  antics  to  modesty,  Crantz 
made  an  error  into  which  so  many  explorers  have  fallen — that 
of  interpreting  the  actions  of  savages  from  the  point  of  view 
of  civilization — an  error  more  pardonable  in  an  unsophisti- 
cated traveller  of  the  eighteenth  century  than  in  a  modern 
sociologist. 

If  we  must  therefore  reject  Herbert  Spencer's  inference  as 
to  the  existence  of  primitive  coyness  and  its  consequences, 
how  are  we  to  account  for  the  comedy  of  mock  capture  ? 
Several  writers  have  tried  to  crack  the  nut.  Sutherland  (I., 
200)  holds  that  sham  capture  is  not  a  survival  of  real  capture, 
but  tf  the  festive  symbolism  of  the  contrast  in  the  character 
of  the  sexes — courage  in  the  man  and  shyness  in  the  woman  " 
— a  fantastic  suggestion  which  does  not  call  for  discussion, 
since,  as  we  know,  the  normal  primitive  woman  is  anything 
but  shy.  Abercromby  (I.,  454)  is  another  writer  who  believes 
that  sham  capture  is  not  a  survival  of  real  capture,  but  merely 
a  result  of  the  innate  general  desire  on  the  part  of  the  men 
to  display  courage — a  view  which  dodges  the  one  thing  that 
calls  for  an  explanation — the  resistance  of  the  women.  Grosse 
indulges  in  some  curious  antics  (105-108).  First  he  asks  : 
"  Since  real  capture  is  everywhere  an  exception  and  is  looked 
on  as  punishable,  why  should  the  semblance  of  capture  have 
ever  become  a  general  and  approved  custom  ?"  Then  he  asks, 
with  a  sneer,  why  sociology  should  be  called  upon  to  answer 
such  questions  anyhow  ;  and  a  moment  later  he,  nevertheless, 
attempts  an  answer,  on  Spencerian  lines.  Among  inferior 
races,  he  remarks,  women  are  usually  coveted  as  spoils  of  war. 
The  captured  women  become  the  wives  or  concubines  of 
the  warriors  and  thus  represent,  as  it  were,  trophies  of 
their  valor.  Is  it  not,  therefore,  inevitable  that  the  acquisi- 
tion of  a  wife  by  force  should  be  looked  on,  among  warlike 
races,  as  the  most  honorable  way  of  getting  her,  nay,  in 
course  of  time,  as  the  only  one  worthy  of  a  warrior  ?  But 
since,  he  continues,  not  all  the  men  can  get  wives  in  that 
way,  even  among  the  rudest  tribes,  these  other  men  consoled 
themselves  with  investing  the  peaceful  home-taking  of  a  bride 
also  with  the  show  of  an  honorable  capture. 


WHY   THE   WOMEN   RESIST  125 

In  other  words,  Grosse  declares  on  one  page  that  it  is  absurd 
to  derive  approved  sham  capture  from  real  capture  because 
real  capture  is  everywhere  exceptional  only  and  is  always  con- 
sidered punishable  ;  yet  two  pages  later  he  argues  that  sham 
capture  is  derived  from  real  capture  because  the  latter  is  so 
honorable  !  As  a  matter  of  fact,  among  the  lowest  races 
known,  wife-stealing  is  not  considered  honorable.  Kegarding 
the  Australians,  Curr  states  distinctly  (I.,  108)  that  it  was  not 
encouraged  because  it  was  apt  to  involve  a  whole  tribe  in  war 
for  one  man's  sake.  Among  the  North  American  Indians,  on 
the  other  hand,  where,  as  we  saw  in  the  chapter  on  Honorable 
Polygamy,  a  wife-stealer  is  admired  by  both  men  and  women, 
sham  capture  does  not  prevail.  Grossed  argument,  therefore, 
falls  to  the  ground. 


WHY   THE   WOMEN   RESIST 

Prior  to  all  these  writers  Sir  John  Lubbock  advanced  (98)  still 
another  theory  of  capture,  real  and  sham.  Believing  that  men 
once  had  all  their  wives  in  common,  he  declares  that  "capt- 
ure, and  capture  alone,  could  originally  give  a  man  the  right 
to  monopolize  a  woman  to  the  exclusion  of  his  fellow-clans- 
men ;  and  that  hence,  even  after  all  necessity  for  actual  capt- 
ure had  long  ceased,  the  symbol  remained  ;  capture  having,  by 
long  habit,  come  to  be  received  as  a  necessary  preliminary  to 
marriage."  This  theory  has  the  same  shortcoming  as  the 
others.  While  accounting  for  the  capture,  it  does  not  ex- 
plain the  resistance  of  the  women.  In  real  capture  they 
had  real  reasons  for  kicking,  biting,  and  howling,  but  why 
should  they  continue  these  antics  in  cases  of  sham  capt- 
ure ?  Obviously  another  factor  came  into  play  here,  which 
has  been  strangely  overlooked — parental  persuasion  or  com- 
mand. Among  savages  a  father  owns  his  daughter  as  abso- 
lutely as  his  dog  ;  he  can  sell  or  exchange  her  at  pleasure  ;  in 
Australia,  "swapping  "  daughters  or  sisters  is  the  commonest 
mode  of  marriage.  Now,  stealing  brides,  or  eloping  to  avoid 
having  to  pay  for  them,  is  of  frequent  occurrence  everywhere 
among  uncivilized  races.  To  protect  themselves  against  such 


126  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

loss  of  personal  property  it  must  have  occurred  to  parents  at 
an  early  date  that  it  would  be  wise  to  teach  their  daughters  to 
resist  all  suitors  until  it  has  become  certain  that  their  inten- 
tions are  honorable — that  is,  that  they  intend  to  pay.  In 
course  of  time  such  teaching  (strengthened  by  the  girls'  pride 
at  being  purchased  for  a  large  sum)  would  assume  the  form 
of  an  inviolable  command,  having  the  force  of  a  taboo 
and,  with  the  stubbornness  peculiar  to  many  social  customs, 
persisting  long  after  the  original  reasons  have  ceased  to 
exist. 

In  other  words,  I  believe  that  the  peculiar  antics  of  the 
brides  in  cases  of  sham  capture  are  neither  due  to  innate  fem- 
inine coyness  nor  are  they  a  direct  survival  of  the  genuine 
resistance  made  in  real  capture  ;  but  that  they  are  simpty  a 
result  of  parental  dictation  which  assigns  to  the  bride  the 
r61e  she  must  play  in  the  comedy  of  "courtship."  I  find 
numerous  facts  supporting  this  view,  espacially  in  Reinsberg- 
Diiringsfeld's  Hochzeitsbuch  and  Schroeder's  Hochzeitsge- 
brduche  der  Esten. 

Describing  the  marriage  customs  of  the  Mordvins,  Mainow 
says  that  the  bridegroom  sneaks  into  the  bride's  house  before 
daybreak,  seizes  her  and  carries  her  off  to  where  his  compan- 
ions are  waiting  with  their  wagons.  "  Etiquette,"  he  adds,  "de- 
manclsih&t  she  should  resist  violently  and  cry  loudly, even  if  she 
is  entirely  in  favor  of  the  elopement."  Among  the  Yotyaks 
girl-stealing  (kukem)  occurs  to  this  day.  If  the  father  is  un- 
willing or  asks  too  much,  while  the  young  folks  are  willing, 
the  girl  goes  to  work  in  the  field  and  the  lover  carries  her  off. 
On  the  way  to  his  house  she  is  cheerful,  but  when  they  reach 
the  lover's  house  she  begins  to  cry  and  wail,  whereupon  she  is 
locked  up  in  a  cabin  that  has  no  window.  The  father,  having 
found  out  where  she  is,  comes  and  demands  payment.  If  the 
lover  offers  too  little,  the  parent  plies  his  whip  on  him. 
Among  the  Ostyaks  such  elopements,  to  avoid  payment,  are 
frequent.  Regarding  the  Esthoiiians,  Schroeder  says  (40)  : 
"When  the  intermediary  comes,  the  girl  must  conceal  herself 
in  some  place  until  she  is  either  found,  with  her  father's 
consent,  or  appears  of  her  own  accord."  In  the  old  epic 


QUAINT   CUSTOMS  127 

"  Kalewipoeg,"  Salme  hides  in  the  garret  and  Linda  in  the 
bath-room,  and  refuse  to  come  out  till  after  much  coaxing 
and  urging. 


QUAINT   CUSTOMS 

The  words  I  have  italicized  indicate  the  passive  r61e  played 
by  the  girls,  who  simply  carry  out  the  instructions  given  to 
them.  The  parents  are  the  stage-managers,  and  they  know 
very  well  what  they  want — money  or  brandy.  Among  the 
Mordvins,  as  soon  as  the  suitor  and  his  friends  are  seen  ap- 
proaching the  bride's  house,  it  is  barricaded,  and  the  defend- 
ers ask,  "Who.  are  you?"  The  answer  is,  "Merchants." 
"What  do  you  wish?"  "Living  goods."  "We  do  not 
trade  !"  "We  shall  take  her  by  force."  A  show  of  force  is 
made,  but  finally  the  suitors  are  admitted,  after  paying  twenty 
kopeks.  In  Little  Russia  it  is  customary  to  barricade  the 
door  of  the  bride's  house  with  a  wheel,  but  after  offering 
a  bottle  of  brandy  as  a  "pass"  the  suitor's  party  is  allowed 
to  enter. 

Among  the  Esthonians  custom  demands  (Schroeder,  36), 
that  a  comedy  like  the  following  be  enacted.  The  intermed- 
iary comes  to  the  bride's  house  and  pretends  that  he  has  lost 
a  cow  or  a  lamb,  and  asks  permission  to  hunt  for  it.  The 
girl's  relatives  at  first  stubbornly  deny  having  any  knowl- 
edge of  its  whereabouts,  but  finally  they  allow  the  suitors  to 
search,  and  the  bride  is  usually  found  without  much  delay. 
In  Western  Prussia  (Berent  district),  after  the  bridegroom 
has  made  his  terms  with  the  bride  and  her  parents,  he  comes 
to  their  house  and  says:  "We  were  out  hunting  and  saw 
a  wounded  deer  run  into  this  house.  May  we  follow  its 
tracks?"  Permission  is  granted,  whereupon  the  men  start 
in  pursuit  of  the  bride,  who  has  hidden  away  with  the  other 
village  maidens.  At  last  the  "hound" — one  of  the  bride- 
groom's companions — finds  her  and  brings  her  to  the  lover. 

Similar  customs  have  prevailed  in  parts  of  Russia,  Rou- 
mania,  Servia,  Sardinia,  Hungary,  and  elsewhere.  In  Old 
Finland  the  comedy  continues  even  after  the  nuptial  knot 


128  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

has  been  tied.  The  bridal  couple  return  each  to  their  home. 
Soon  the  groom  appears  at  the  bride's  house  and  demands  to 
be  admitted.  Her  father  refuses  to  let  him  in.  A  "pass" 
is  thereupon  produced  and  read,  and  this,  combined  with  a 
few  presents,  finally  secures  admission.  In  some  districts 
the  bride  remains  invisible  even  during  the  wedding-dinner, 
and  it  is  "  good  form  "  for  her  to  let  the  guests  wait  as  long 
as  possible,  and  not  to  appear  until  after  considerable  coaxing 
by  her  mother.  When  a  Votyak  bridegroom  comes  after  the 
bride  on  the  wedding-day  she  is  denied  to  him  three  times. 
After  that  she  is  searched  for,  dragged  from  her  hiding-place, 
and  her  face  covered  with  a  cloth,  while  she  screams  and 
struggles.  Then  she  is  carried  to  the  yard,  placed  on  a 
blanket  with  her  face  down,  and  the  bridegroom  belabors  her 
with  a  stick  on  a  pillow  which  has  been  tied  on  her  back. 
After  that  she  becomes  obedient  and  amiable.  A  Mordvin 
bride  must  try  to  escape  from  the  wagon  on  the  way  to  the 
church.  In  Old  Finland  the  bride  was  barricaded  in  her 
house  even  after  the  wedding,  and  the  Island  Swedes  have 
the  same  custom.  This  burlesque  of  bridal  resistance  after 
marriage  occurs  also  among  the  wild  tribes  of  India.  "  After 
remaining  with  her  husband  for  ten  days  only/'  writes  Dai- 
ton  (192),  "it  is  the  correct  thing  for  the  wife  to  run  away 
from  him,  and  tell  all  her  friends  that  she  loves  him  not  and 
will  see  him  no  more/'  The  husband's  duty  is  to  seek  her 
eagerly.  "I  have  seen  a  young  wife  thus  found  and  claimed 
and  borne  away,  screeching  and  struggling  in  the  arms  of  her 
husband,  from  the  midst  of  a  crowded  bazaar.  No  one  inter- 
feres on  these  occasions." 

More  than  enough  has  now  been  said  to  prove  that  in  cases 
of  sham  capture  the  girls  simply  follow  their  village  customs 
blindly.  Left  to  themselves  they  might  act  very  differently, 
but  as  it  is,  all  the  girls  in  each  district  must  do  the  same 
thing,  however  silly.  About  the  real  feelings  of  the  girls 
these  comedies  tell  us  nothing  whatever.  With  coyness — 
that  is,  a  woman's  concealment  of  her  feelings  toward  a  man 
she  likes — these  actions  have  no  more  to  do  than  the  man  in 
the  moon  has  with  anthropology.  Least  of  all  do  they  tell 


MERCENARY    COYNESS  129 

us  anything  about  love,  for  the  girls  must  all  act  alike,  whether 
they  favor  a  man  or  not.  Regarding  the  absence  of  love  we 
have,  moreover,  the  direct  testimony  of  Dr.  F.  Kreutzwald 
(Schroeder,  233).  That  marriages  are  made  in  heaven  is,  he 
declares,  true  in  a  certain  sense,  so  far  as  the  Esthonians  are 
concerned;  for  "the  parties  concerned  usually  play  a  passive 
role.  .  .  .  Love  is  not  one  of  the  requisites,  it  is  an  un- 
known phenomenon/'  Utilitarianism,  he  adds,  is  the  basis  of 
their  marriages.  The  suitor  tries  to  ascertain  if  the  girl  he 
wants  is  a  good  worker  ;  to  find  this  out  he  may  even  watch 
her  secretly  while  she  is  spinning,  thrashing,  or  combing  flax. 
"  Most  of  the  men  proceed  at  random,  and  it  is  not  unusual 
for  a  suitor  who  has  been  refused  in  one  place  and  another 
to  proceed  at  once  to  a  third  or  fourth.  .  .  .  Many  a 
bridegroom  sees  his  bride  for  the  first  time  at  the  ceremony 
of  the  priestly  betrothal,  and  he  cannot  therefore  be  blamed 
for  asking  :  '  Which  of  these  girls  is  my  bride  ?" 

GREEK   AND    ROMAN   MERCENARY   COYNESS 

So  far  our  search  for  that  coyness  which  is  an  ingredient  of 
modern  love  has  been  in  vain.  At  the  same  time  it  is  obvious 
that  since  coyness  is  widely  prevalent  at  the  present  day  it 
must  have  been  in  the  past  of  use  to  women,  else  it  would  not 
have  survived  and  increased.  The  question  is  :  how  far 
down  in  the  scale  of  civilization  do  we  find  traces  of  it  ?  The 
literature  of  the  ancient  Greeks  indicates  that,  in  a  cer- 
tain phase  and  among  certain  classes,  it  was  known  to  them. 
True,  the  respectable  women,  being  always  locked  up  and 
having  no  choice  in  the  selecting  of  their  partners,  had 
no  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  any  sort  of  coyness.  But 
the  hetairai  appear  to  have  understood  the  advantages  of 
assumed  disdain  or  indifference  in  making  a  coveted  man 
more  eager  in  his  wooing.  In  the  fifteenth  of  Lucian's 
'EracpiKot  SiaAoyoi  we  read  about  a  wanton  who  locked  her  door 
to  her  lover  because  he  had  refused  to  pay  her  two  talents  for 
the  privilege  of  exclusive  possession.  In  other  cases,  the 
poets  still  feel  called  upon  to  teach  these  women  how  to 


130  ROMANTIC   LOVE—COYNESS 

make  men   submissive  by  withholding  caresses  from  them. 
Thus  in  Lucian,  Pythias  exclaims  : 

"  To  tell  the  truth,  dear  Joessa,  you  yourself  spoiled  him 
with  your  excessive  love,  which  you  even  allowed  him  to 
notice.  You  should  not  have  made  so  much  of  him  :  men, 
when  they  discover  that,  easily  become  overweening.  Do 
not  weep,  poor  girl  !  Follow  my  advice  and  keep  your  door 
locked  once  or  twice  when  he  tries  to  see  you  again.  You 
will  find  that  that  will  make  him  flame  up  again  and  become 
frantic  with  love  and  jealousy."  In  the  third  book  of  his 
treatise  on  the  Art  of  Love,  Ovid  advises  women  (of  the  same 
class)  how  to  win  men.  He  says,  in  substance  :  '•'  Do  not 
answer  his  letters  too  soon  ;  all  delay  inflames  the  lover,  pro- 
vided it  does  not  last  too  long.  .  .  .  What  is  too  readily 
granted  does  not  long  retain  love.  Mix  with  the  pleasure 
you  give  mortifying  refusals,  make  him  wait  in  your  door- 
way ;  let  him  bewail  the  '  cruel  door  ; '  let  him  beg  humbly, 
or  else  get  angry  and  threaten.  Sweet  things  cloy,  tonics  are 
bitter." 

MODESTY  AND   COYNESS 

Feigned  unwillingness  or  indifference  in  obedience  to  such 
advice  may  perhaps  be  called  coyness,  but  it  is  only  a  coarse 
primitive  phase  of  that  attitude,  based  on  sordid,  mercenary 
motives,  whereas  true  modern  coyness  consists  in  an  impulse, 
grounded  in  modesty,  to  conceal  affection.  The  germs  of 
Greek  venal  coyness  for  filthy  lucre  may  be  found  as  low  down 
as  among  the  Papuan  women  who,  as  Bastian  notes  (Ploss, 
L,  460)  exact  payment  in  shell-money  for  their  caresses. 
Of  the  Tongans,  highest  of  all  Polynesians,  Mariner  says 
(Martin,  II.,  174):  "It  must  not  be  supposed  that  these 
women  are  always  easily  won  ;  the  greatest  attentions  and  fer- 
vent solicitations  are  sometimes  requisite,  even  though  there 
be  no  other  lover  in  the  way.  This  happens  sometimes  from  a 
spirit  of  coquetry,  at  other  times  from  a  dislike  to  the  party, 
etc."  Now  coquetry  is  a  cousin  of  coyness,  but  in  whatever 
way  this  Tongan  coquetry  may  manifest  itself  (no  details  are 
given)  it  certainly  lacks  the  regard  for  modesty  and  chastity 
which  is  essential  to  modern  coyness  ;  for,  as  the  writer  just 
referred  to  attests,  Tongan  girls  are  permitted  to  indulge  in 


UTILITY   OF   COYNESS  131 

free  intercourse  before  marriage,  the  only  thing  liable  to  cen- 
sure being  a  too  frequent  change  of  lovers. 

That  the  anxious  regard  for  chastity,  modesty,  decorum, 
which  cannot  be  present  in  the  coquetry  of  these  Tongan 
women,  is  one  of  the  essential  ingredients  of  modern  coyness 
has  long  been  felt  by  the  poets.  After  Juliet  has  made  her 
confession  of  love  which  Romeo  overhears  in  the  dark,  she 
apologizes  to  him  because  she  fears  that  he  might  attribute 
her  easy  yielding  to  light  love.  Lest  he  think  her  too  quickly 
won  she  "  would  have  frowned  and  been  perverse,  and  said 
him  nay."  Then  she  begs  him  trust  she'll  " prove  more  true 
than  those  that  have  more  cunning  to  be  strange."  Withers 
"  That  coy  one  in  the  winning,  proves  a  true  one  being  won,"' 
expresses  the  same  sentiment. 


UTILITY   OF   COYNESS 

Man's  esteem  for  virtues  which  he  does  not  always  practise 
himself,  is  thus  responsible,  in  part  at  least,  for  the  existence 
of  modern  coyness.  Other  factors,  however,  aided  its  growth, 
among  them  man's  fickleness.  If  a  girl  did  not  say  nay  (when 
she  would  rather  say  yes),  and  hold  back,  hesitate,  and  delay, 
the  suitor  would  in  many  cases  suck  the  honey  from  her  lips 
and  flit  away  to  another  flower.  Cumulative  experience  of 
man's  sensual  selfishness  has  taught  her  to  be  slow  in  yielding  to 
his  advances.  Experience  has  also  taught  women  that  men  are 
apt  to  value  favors  in  proportion  to  the  difficulty  of  winning 
them,  and  the  wisest  of  them  have  profited  by  the  lesson. 
Callimachus  wrote,  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Christ, 
that  his  love  was  "  versed  in  pursuing  what  flies  (from  it), 
but  flits  past  what  lies  in  its  mid  path  " — a  conceit  which  the 
poets  have  since  echoed  a  thousand  times.  Another  very  im- 
portant thing  that  experience  taught  women  was  that  by  de- 
ferring or  withholding  their  caresses  and  smiles  they  could 
make  the  tyrant  man  humble,  generous,  and  gallant.  Girls 
who  do  not  throw  themselves  away  on  the  first  man  who  hap- 
pens along,  also  have  an  advantage  over  others  who  are  less 
fastidious  and  coy,  and  by  transmitting  their  disposition  to 


132  ROMANTIC   LOVE— COYNESS 

their  daughters  they  give  it  greater  vogue.  Female  coyness 
prevents  too  hasty  marriages,  and  the  girls  who  lack  it  often 
live  to  repent  their  shortcomings  at  leisure.  Coyness  pro- 
longs the  period  of  courtship  and,  by  keeping  the  suitor  in 
suspense  and  doubt,  it  develops  the  imaginative,  sentimental 
side  of  love. 


HOW   WOMEN   PKOPOSE 

Sufficient  reasons,  these,  why  coyness  should  have  gradually 
become  a  general  attribute  of  femininity.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
an  artificial  product  of  imperfect  social  conditions,  and  in  an 
ideal  world  women  would  not  be  called  upon  to  romance  about 
their  feelings.  As  a  mark  of  modesty,  coyness  will  always 
have  a  charm  for  men,  and  a  woman  devoid  of  it  will  never 
inspire  genuine  love.  But  what  I  have  elsewhere  called 
"  spring-chicken  coyness" — the  disposition  of  European  girls 
to  hide  shyly  behind  their  mammas — as  chickens  do  under  a 
hen  at  the  sight  of  a  hawk — is  losing  its  charm  in  face  of  the 
frank  confidingness  of  American  girls  in  the  presence  of  gen- 
tlemen ;  and  as  for  that  phase  of  coyness  which  consists  in  con- 
cealing affection  for  a  man,  girls  usually  manage  to  circum- 
vent it  in  a  more  or  less  refined  manner.  Some  girls  who  are 
coarse,  or  have  little  control  of  their  feelings,  propose  bluntly 
to  the  men  they  want.  I  myself  have  known  several  such 
cases,  but  the  man  always  refused.  Others  have  a  thousand 
subtle  ways  of  betraying  themselves  without  actually  "giving 
themselves  away/'  A  very  amusing  story  of  how  an  ingeni- 
ous maiden  tries  to  bring  a  young  man  to  bay  has  been  told  by 
Anthony  Hope.  Dowden  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  it  is 
Juliet  "  who  proposes  and  urges  on  the  sudden  marriage." 
Romeo  has  only  spoken  of  love  ;  it  is  she  who  asks  him,  if  his 
purpose  be  marriage,  to  send  her  word  next  day.  In  Troilus 
and  Cressida  (III.,  2),  the  heroine  exclaims  : 

But,  though  I  loved  you  well,  I  woo'd  you  not ; 
And  yet,  good  faith,  I  wished  myself  a  man, 
Or  that  we  women  had  men's  privilege 
Of  speaking  first. 


AMOROUS   ANTITHESES  133 

In  his  Old  Virginia  (II.,  127)  John  Fiske  tells  a  funny 
story  of  how  Parson  Camm  was  wooed.  A  young  friend  of 
his,  who  had  been  courting  Miss  Betsy  Hansford  of  his  parish, 
asked  him  to  assist  him  with  his  eloquence.  The  parson  did 
so  by  citing  to  the  girl  texts  from  the  Bible  enjoining  matri- 
mony as  a  duty.  But  she  beat  him  at  his  own  game,  telling 
him  to  take  his  Bible  when  he  got  home  and  look  at  2  Sam. 
xii.  7,  which  would  explain  her  obduracy.  He  did  so,  and 
found  this  :  "  And  Nathan  said  to  David,  thou  art  the  man." 
The  parson  took  the  hint — and  the  girl. 


V.    HOPE   AND   DESPAIR— MIXED   MOODS 

She  never  told  her  love  ; 

But  let  concealment,  like  a  worm  i'  the  bud, 
Feed  on  her  damask  cheek :  she  pined  in  thought ; 
And,  with  a  green  and  yellow  melancholy, 
She  sat,  like  Patience  on  a  monument, 
Smiling  at  grief.      Was  not  this  love  indeed  ? 

asks  Viola  in  As  You  Like  It.  It  was  love  indeed ;  but 
only  two  phases  of  it  are  indicated  in  the  lines  quoted — coy- 
ness ("  She  never  told  her  love5')  and  the  mixture  of  emotions 
("smiling  at  grief"),  which  is  another  characteristic  of  love. 
Romantic  love  is  a  pendulum  swinging  perpetually  between 
hope  and  despair.  A  single  unkind  word  or  sign  of  indiffer- 
ence may  make  a  lover  feel  the  agony  of  death,  while  a  smile 
may  raise  him  from  the  abyss  of  despair  to  heavenly  heights 
of  bliss.  As  Goethe  puts  it : 

Himrnehoch  jauchzend 
Zum  Tode  betriibt, 
Gliicklich  allein 
1st  die  Seele  die  liebt. 

AMOROUS   ANTITHESES 

"When  a  Marguerite  plucks  the  petals  of  a  marguerite,  mut- 
tering "he  loves  me — he  loves  me  not,"  her  heart  flutters  in 
momentary  anguish  with  every  "not,"  till  the  next  petal 
soothes  it  again. 


134  ROMANTIC   LOVE— MIXED   MOODS 

I  cannot  bound  a  pitch  above  dull  woe  ; 
Under  love's  heavy  burden  do  I  sink, 

wails  Komeo  ;  and  again  : 

Why  then,  O  brawling  love !     O  loving  hate ! 

O  anything,  of  nothing  first  create ! 

O  heavy  lightness  !  serious  vanity  ! 

Misshapen  chaos  of  well-seeming  forms  ! 

Feather  of  lead,  bright  smoke,  cold  fire,  sick  health ! 

Love  is  a  smoke  raised  with  the  fume  of  sighs ; 
Being  purged,  a  fire  sparkling  in  lovers'  eyes ; 
Being  vex'd,  a  sea  nourish'd  with  lovers'  tears ; 
What  is  it  else?  a  madness  most  discreet, 
A  choking  gall  and  a  preserving  sweet. 

In  commenting  on  Romeo,  who  in  his  love  for  Eosaline  in- 
dulges in  emotion  for  emotion's  sake,  and  "  stimulates  his 
fancy  with  the  sough t-out  phrases,  the  curious  antitheses  of 
the  amorous  dialect  of  the  period,"  Dowden  writes  :  "  Mrs. 
Jameson  has  noticed  that  in  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  (I., 
180-89),  Helena  mockingly  reproduces  this  style  of  amor- 
ous antithesis.  Helena,  who  lives  so  effectively  in  the  world 
of  fact,  is  contemptuous  toward  all  unreality  and  affecta- 
tion." 

Now,  it  is  quite  true  that  expressions  like  "  cold  fire  "  and 
"  sick  health  "  sound  unreal  and  affected  to  sober  minds,  and 
it  is  also  true  that  many  poets  have  exercised  their  emulous 
ingenuity  in  inventing  such  antitheses  just  for  the  fun  of  the 
thing  and  because  it  has  been  the  fashion  to  do  so.  Never- 
theless, with  all  their  artificiality,  they  were  hinting  at  an 
emotional  phenomenon  which  actually  exists.  Romantic 
love  is  in  reality  a  state  of  mind  in  which  cold  and  heat  may 
and  do  alternate  so  rapidly  that  "cold  fire"  seems  the  only 
proper  expression  to  apply  to  such  a  mixed  feeling.  It  is  lit- 
erally true  that,  as  Bailey  sang,  "  the  sweetest  joy,  the  wildest 
woe  is  love;"  literally  true  that  "the  sweets  of  love  are 
washed  with  tears,"  as  Carew  wrote,  or,  as  H.  K.  White  ex- 
pressed it,  "  'Tis  painful,  though  'tis  sweet  to  love."  A  man 


COURTSHIP   AND   IMAGINATION  135 

who  has  actually  experienced  the  feeling  of  uncertain  love 
sees  nothing  unreal  or  affected  in  Tennyson's 


or  in  Drayton's 


or  in  Dryden's 


The  cruel  madness  of  love 
The  honey  of  poisoned  flowers, 


'Tis  nothing  to  be  plagued  in  hell 
But  thus  in  heaven  tormented, 


I  feed  a  flame  within,  which  so  torments  me 
That  it  both  pains  my  heart,  and  yet  enchants  me : 
'Tis  such  a  pleasing  smart,  and  I  so  love  it, 
That  I  had  rather  die  than  once  remove  it, 

or  in  Juliet's 

Good-night  !  good-night  !  parting  is  such  sweet  sorrow, 
That  I  shall  say  good-night  till  it  be  morrow. 

This  mysterious  mixture  of  moods,  constantly  maintained 
through  the  alternations  of  hope  and  doubt,  elation  and  de- 
spair, 

And  hopes,  and  fears  that  kindle  hope, 

An  undistinguishable  throng 

as  Coleridge  puts  it ;  or 

Where  hot  and  cold,  where  sharp  and  sweet, 
In  all  their  equipages  meet ; 
Where  pleasures  mixed  with  pains  appear, 
Sorrow  with  joy,  and  hope  with  fear 

as  Swift  rhymes  it,  is  thus  seen  to  be  one  of  the  essential  and 
most  characteristic  ingredients  of  modern  romantic  love. 


COURTSHIP   AND   IMAGINATION 

Here,  again,  the  question  confronts  us,  How  far  down  among 
the  strata  of  human  life  can  we  find  traces  of  this  ingredient  of 
love  ?  Do  we  find  it  among  the  Eskimos,  for  instance  ?  Nansen 
relates  (II.,  317),  that  "In  the  old  Greenland  days  marriage 
was  a  simple  and  speedy  affair.  If  a  man  took  a  fancy  to  a 


136  ROMANTIC    LOVE— MIXED    MOODS 

girl,  he  merely  went  to  her  home  or  tent,  caught  her  by  the 
hair  or  anything  else  which  offered  a  hold,  and  dragged  her  off 
to  his  dwelling  without  further  ado."  Nay,  in  some  cases, 
even  this  unceremonious  "courtship"  was  perpetrated  by 
proxy  !  The  details  regarding  the  marriage  customs  of  lower 
races  already  cited  in  this  volume,  with  the  hundreds  more  to 
be  given  in  the  following  pages,  cannot  fail  to  convince  the 
reader  that  primitive  courtship — where  there  is  any  at  all — is 
habitually  a  "  simple  and  speedy  affair  " — not  always  as  simple 
and  speedy  as  with  Nansen's  Greenlanders,  but  too  much  so 
to  allow  of  the  growth  and  play  of  those  mixed  emotions  which 
agitate  modern  swains.  Fancy  the  difference  between  the 
African  of  Yariba  who,  as  Lander  tells  us  (I.,  161),  "thinks 
as  little  of  taking  a  wife  as  of  cutting  an  ear  of  corn,"  and  the 
modern  lover  who  suffers  the  tortures  of  the  inferno  because  a 
certain  girl  frowns  on  him,  while  her  smiles  may  make  him  so 
happy  that  he  would  not  change  places  with  a  king,  unless  his 
beloved  were  to  be  queen.  Savages  cannot  experience  such 
extremes  of  anguish  and  rapture,  because  they  have  no  imag- 
ination. It  is  only  when  the  imagination  comes  into  play 
that  we  can  look  for  the  joys  and  sorrows,  the  hopes  and  fears, 
that  help  to  make  up  the  sum  and  substance  of  romantic 
love. 

EFFECTS   OF   SENSUAL   LOVE 

At  the  same  time  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  assume 
that  the  manifestation  of  mixed  moods  proves  the  presence  of 
romantic  love.  After  all,  the  alternation  of  hope  and  despair 
which  produces  those  bitter-sweet  paradoxes  of  the  varying  and 
mixed  emotions,  is  one  of  the  selfish  aspects  of  passion  :  the 
lover  fears  or  hopes  for  himself,  not  for  the  other.  There  is, 
therefore,  no  reason  why  we  should  not  read  of  troubled  or 
ecstatic  lovers  in  the  poems  of  the  ancient  writers,  who, 
while  knowing  love  only  as  selfish  lust,  nevertheless  had 
sufficient  imagination  to  suffer  the  agonies  of  thwarted  pur- 
pose and  the  delights  of  realized  hopes.  As  a  boat-load  of 
shipwrecked  s'ailors,  hungry  and  thirsty,  may  be  switched 
from  deadly  despair  to  frantic  joy  by  the  approach  of  a  res- 


EFFECTS   OF   SENSUAL   LOVE  137 

cuing  vessel,  so  may  a  man  change  his  moods  who  is  swayed 
by  what  is,  next  to  hunger  and  thirst,  the  most  powerful  and 
imperious  of  all  appetites.  We  must  not,  therefore,  make  the 
luckless  assumption  that  the  Greek  and  Sanscrit  writers  must 
have  known  romantic  love,  because  they  describe  men  and 
women  as  being  prostrated  or  elated  by  strong  passion.  When 
Euripides  speaks  of  love  as  being  both  delectable  and  painful ; 
when  Sappho  and  Theocritus  note  the  pallor,  the  loss  of  sleep, 
the  fears  and  tears  of  lovers ;  when  Achilles  Tatius  makes  his 
lover  exclaim,  at  sight  of  Leucippe  :  "I  was  overwhelmed 
by  conflicting  feelings  :  admiration,  astonishment,  agitation, 
shame,  assurance  ; "  when  King  Pururavas,  in  the  Hindoo 
drama,  Urvasi  is  tormented  by  doubts  as  to  whether  his 
love  is  reciprocated  by  the  celestial  Bayadere  (apsara)  ; 
when,  in  Malati,  a  love-glance  is  said  to  be  "  anointed  with 
nectar  and  poison  •; "  when  the  arrows  of  the  Hindoo  gods  of 
love  are  called  hard,  though  made  of  flowers ;  burning,  though 
not  in  contact  with  the  skin  ;  voluptuous,  though  piercing — 
when  we  come  across  such  symptoms  and  fancies  we  have  no 
right  as  yet  to  infer  the  existence  of  romantic  love  ;  for  all 
these  things  also  characterize  sensual  passion,  which  is  love 
only  in  the  sense  of  self-love,  whereas,  romantic  love  is  af- 
fection for  another — a  distinction  which  will  be  made  more 
and  more  manifest  as  we  proceed  in  our  discussion  of  the  in- 
gredients of  love,  especially  the  last  seven,  which  are  altruistic. 
It  is  only  when  we  find  these  altruistic  ingredients  associated 
with  the  hopes  and  fears  and  mixed  moods  that  we  can  speak 
of  romantic  love.  The  symptoms  referred  to  in  this  para- 
graph tell  us  about  selfish  longings,  selfish  pleasures  and 
selfish  pains,  but  nothing  whatever  about  affection  for  the 
person  who  is  so  eagerly  coveted. 


VI.  HYPERBOLE 

As  long  as  love  was  supposed  to  be  an  uncompounded 
emotion  and  no  distinction  was  made  between  appetite  and 
sentiment — that  is  between  the  selfish  desire  of  eroticism  and 


138  ROMANTIC   LOVE— HYPERBOLE 

the  self-sacrificing  ardor  of  altruistic  affection — it  was  natural 
enough  that  the  opinion  should  have  prevailed  that  love  has 
been  always  and  everywhere  the  same,  inasmuch  as  several  of 
the  traits  which  characterize  the  modern  passion — stubborn 
preference  for  an  individual,  a  desire  for  exclusive  possession, 
jealousy  toward  rivals,  coy  resistance  and  the  resulting  mixed 
moods  of  doubt  and  hope — were  apparently  in  existence  in 
earlier  and  lower  stages  of  human  development.  We  have 
now  seen,  however,  that  these  indications  are  deceptive,  for  the 
reason  that  lust  as  well  as  love  can  be  fastidious  in  choice,  in- 
sistent on  a  monopoly,  and  jealous  of  rivals ;  that  coyness 
may  spring  from  purely  mercenary  motives,  and  that  the 
mixed  moods  of  hope  and  despair  may  disquiet  or  delight 
men  and  women  who  know  love  only  as  a  carnal  appetite.  We 
now  take  up  our  sixth  ingredient — Hyperbole — which  has 
done  more  than  any  other  to  confuse  the  minds  of  scholars  as 
regards  the  antiquity  of  romantic  love,  for  the  reason  that 
it  presents  the  passion  of  the  ancients  in  its  most  poetic  and 
romantic  aspects. 

GIKLS   AND    FLOWERS 

Amorous  hyperbole  may  be  defined  as  obvious  exaggeration 
in  praising  the  charms  of  a  beloved  girl  or  youth  ;  Shakspere 
speaks  of  "  exclamations  hyperbolical  .  .  .  praises  sauced 
with  lies/'  Such  "  praises  sauced  with  lies  "  abound  in  the 
verse  and  prose  of  Greek  and  Roman  as  well  as  Sanscrit  and 
other  Oriental  writers,  and  they  assume  as  diverse  forms  as 
in  modern  erotic  literature.  The  commonest  is  that  in  which 
a  girl's  complexion  is  compared  to  lilies  and  roses.  The  Cy- 
clops in  Theocritus  tells  Galatea  she  is  "  whiter  than  milk 
brighter  than  a  bunch  of  hard  grapes."  The  mis- 
tress of  Propertius  has  a  complexion  white  as  lilies ;  her 
cheeks  remind  him  of  "rose  leaves  swimming  on  milk." 

Lilia  non  domina  sunt  magis  alba  mea; 
Ut  Moeotica  nix  minio  si  certet  Eboro, 
Utque  rosae  puro  lacte  natant  folia. 

(II.,  2.) 


EYES   AND   STARS  139 

Achilles  Tatius  wrote  that  the  beauty  of  Leucippe's  counte- 
nance "  might  vie  with  the  flowers  of  the  meadow  ;  the  nar- 
cissus was  resplendent  in  her  general  complexion,  the  rose 
blushed  upon  her  cheek,  the  dark  hue  of  the  violet  sparkled 
in  her  eyes,  her  ringlets  curled  more  closely  than  do  the 
clusters  of  the  ivy — her  face,  therefore,  was  a  reflex  of  the 
meadows."  The  Persian  Hafiz  declares  that  "  the  rose  lost 
its  color  at  sight  of  her  cheeks  and  the  jasmines  silver  bud 
turned  pale."  A  beauty  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  however, 
turns  the  tables  on  the  flowers.  "  Who  dares  to  liken  me  to 
a  rose  ?  "  she  exclaims.  "  Who  is  not  ashamed  to  declare  that 
my  bosom  is  as  lovely  as  the  fruit  of  the  pomegranate-tree  ? 
By  my  beauty  and  grace  !  by  my  eyes  and  black  hair,  I  swear 
that  any  man  who  repeats  such  comparison  shall  be  banished 
from  my  presence  and  killed  by  the  separation  ;  for  if  he 
finds  my  figure  in  the  ban- tree  and  my  cheeks  in  the  rose, 
what  then  does  he  seek  in  me  ?" 

This  girl  spoke  more  profoundly  than  she  knew.  Flowers 
are  beautiful  things,  but  a  spot  red  as  a  rose  on  a  cheek  would 
suggest  the  hectic  flush  of  fever,  and  if  a  girl's  complexion 
were  as  white  as  a  lily  she  would  be  shunned  as  a  leper.  In 
hyperbole  the  step  between  the  sublime  and  the  ridiculous  is 
often  a  very  short  one  ;  yet  the  rose  and  lily  simile  is  perpe- 
trated by  erotic  poets  to  this  day. 


EYES   AND   STARS 

The  eyes  are  subjected  to  similar  treatment,  as  in  Lodge's 

lines 

Her  eyes  are  sapphires  set  in  snow 
Resembling  heaven  by  every  wink. 

Thomas  Hood's  Ruth  had  eyes  whose  "  long  lashes  veiled  a 
light  that  had  else  been  all  too  bright."  Heine  saw  in  the 
blue  eyes  of  his  beloved  the  gates  of  heaven.  Shakspere 
and  Fletcher  have  : 

And  those  eyes,  the  break  of  day, 
Lights  that  do  mislead  the  morn ! 


140  ROMANTIC    LOVE— HYPERBOLE 

When  Romeo  exclaims  : 

Two  of  the  fairest  stars  in  all  the  heaven, 

Having  some  business,  do  entreat  her  eyes 

To  twinkle  in  their  spheres  till  they  return. 

.     .     .     her  eyes  in  heaven 

Would  through  the  airy  region  stream  so  bright 

That  birds  would  sing  and  think  it  were  not  night, 

he  excels,  both  in  fancy  and  in  exaggeration,  all  the  ancient 
poets ;  but  it  was  they  who  began  the  practice  of  likening 
eyes  to  bright  lights.  Ovid  declares  (Met..,  I.,  499)  that  Daph- 
ne's eyes  shone  with  a  fire  like  that  of  the  stars,  and  this 
has  been  a  favorite  comparison  at  all  times.  Tibullus  assures 
us  (IV.,  2)  that  "  when  Cupid  wishes  to  inflame  the  gods,  he 
lights  his  torches  at  Sulpicia's  eyes."  In  the  Hindoo  drama 
Malati  and  Madhava,  the  writer  commits  the  extravagance 
of  making  Madhava  declare  that  the  white  of  his  mistress's 
eyes  suffuses  him  as  with  a  bath  of  milk  ! 

Theocritus,  Tibullus  ("candor  erat,  qualem  prsefert  La- 
tonia  Luna"),  Hafiz,  and  other  Greek,  Roman,  and  Oriental 
poets  are  fond  of  comparing  a  girl's  face  or  skin  to  the  splen- 
dors of  the  moon,  and  even  the  sun  is  none  too  bright  to 
suggest  her  complexion.  In  the  Arabian  Nights  we  road  : 
"  If  I  look  upon  the  heaven  methinks  I  see  the  sun  fallen 
down  to  shine  below,  and  thee  whom  I  desire  to  shine  in  his 
place."  A  girl  may,  indeed,  be  superior  to  sun  and  moon,  as 
we  see  in  the  same  book  :  "  The  moon  has  only  a  few  of  her 
charms ;  the  sun  tried  to  vie  with  her  but  failed.  Where  has 
the  sun  hips  like  those  of  the  queen  of  my  heart  ?  "  An  un- 
answerable argument,  surely  ! 


LOCKS   AND   FEAGRANCE 

When  William  Allingham  wrote  :  "Her  hair's  the  brag  of 
Iceland,  so  weighty  and  so  fine,"  he  followed  in  the  wake  of 
a  hundred  poets,  who  had  made  a  girl's  tresses  the  object  of 
amorous  hyperbole.  Dianeme's  "  rich  hair  which  wantons 
with  the  love-sick  air "  is  a  pretty  conceit.  The  fanciful 
notion  that  a  beautiful  woman  imparts  her  sweetness  to  the 


POETIC    DESIRE   FOR   CONTACT  141 

air,  especially  with  the  fragrance  of  her  hair,  occurs  frequent- 
ly in  the  poems  of  Hafiz  and  other  Orientals.  In  one  of  these 
the  poet  chides  the  zephyr  for  having  stolen  its  sweetness 
while  playing  with  the  beloved's  loose  tresses.  In  another,  a 
youth  declares  that  if  he  should  die  and  the  fragrance  of  his 
beloved's  locks  were  wafted  over  his  grave,  it  would  bring 
him  bacli  to  life.  Ben  Jonson's  famous  lines  to  Celia  : 

I  sent  thee  late  a  rosy  wreath, 

Not  so  much  honoring  thee 
As  giving  it  a  hope  that  there 

It  could  not  withered  be ; 
But  thou  thereon  did'st  only  breathe 

And  sent'st  it  back  to  me ; 
Since  when  it  grows,  and  smells,  I  swear, 

Not  of  itself  but  thee ! 

are  a  free  imitation  of  passages  in  the  Love  Letters  (Nos.  30 
and  31)  of  the  Greek  Philostratus  :  "  Send  me  back  some  of 
the  roses  on  which  you  slept.  Their  natural  fragrance  will 
have  been  increased  by  that  which  you  imparted  to  them." 
This  is  a  great  improvement  on  the  Persian  poets  who  go 
into  raptures  over  the  fragrant  locks  of  fair  women,  not 
for  their  inherent  sweetness,  however,  but  for  the  artificial 
perfumes  used  by  them,  including  the  disgusting  musk  ! 
"  Is  a  caravan  laden  with  musk  returning  from  Khoten  ?" 
sings  one  of  these  bards  in  describing  the  approach  of  his 
mistress. 

POETIC  DESIRE  FOR  CONTACT 

Besides  such  direct  comparisons  of  feminine  charms  to 
flowers,  to  sun  and  moon  and  other  beautiful  objects  of  nature, 
amorous  hyperbole  has  several  other  ways  of  expressing  itself. 
The  lover  longs  to  be  some  article  of  dress  that  he  might  touch 
the  beloved,  or  a  bird  that  he  might  fly  to  her,  or  he  fancies 
that  all  nature  is  love-sick  in  sympathy  with  him.  Romeo's 

See,  how  she  leans  her  cheek  upon  her  hand ! 
O,  that  I  were  a  glove  upon  that  hand, 
That  I  might  touch  that  cheek ! 


142  ROMANTIC   LOVE— HYPERBOLE 

is  varied  in  Heine's  poem,  where  the  lover  wishes  he  were  a 
stool  for  her  feet  to  rest  on,  a  cushion  for  her  to  stick  pins 
in,  or  a  curl-paper  that  he  might  whisper  his  secrets  into  her 
ears  ;  and  in  Tennyson's  dainty  lines  : 

It  is  the  miller's  daughter, 

And  she  is  grown  so  dear,  so  dear, 

That  I  would  be  the  jewel 

That  trembles  at  her  ear ; 

For  hid  in  ringlets  day  and  night 

I'd  touch  her  neck  so  warm  and  white. 

And  I  would  be  the  girdle 

About  her  dainty,  dainty  waist, 

And  her  heart  would  beat  against  me 

In  sorrow  and  in  rest ; 

And  I  should  know  if  it  beat  right, 

I'd  clasp  it  round  so  close  and  tight. 

And  I  would  be  the  necklace, 

And  all  day  long  to  fall  and  rise 

Upon  her  balmy  bosom 

With  her  laughter  or  her  sighs, 

And  I  would  be  so  light,  so  light, 

I  scarce  should  be  unclasped  at  night. 

Herein,  too,  our  modern  poets  were  anticipated  by  the 
ancients.  Anacreoii  wishes  he  were  a  mirror  that  he  might 
reflect  the  image  of  his  beloved  ;  or  the  gown  she  wears  every 
day  ;  or  the  water  that  laves  her  limbs  ;  or  the  balm  that 
anoints  her  body  ;  or  the  pearl  that  adorns  her  neck  ;  or  the 
cloth  that  covers  her  breast ;  or  the  shoes  that  are  trodden 
by  her  feet. 

The  author  of  an  anonymous  poem  in  the  Greek  Anthology 
wishes  he  were  a  breath  of  air  that  he  might  be  received 
in  the  bosom  of  his  beloved  ;  or  a  rose  to  be  picked  by  her 
hand  and  fastened  on  her  bosom.  Others  wish  they  were 
the  water  in  the  fountain  from  which  a  girl  drinks,  or  a 
dolphin  to  carry  her  on  its  back,  or  the  ring  she  wears. 
After  the  Hindoo  Sakiuitala  has  lost  her  ring  in  the  river  the 
poet  expresses  surprise  that  the  ring  should  have  been  able  to 
separate  itself  from  that  hand.  The  Cyclops  of  Theocritus 


NATURE'S   SYMPATHY   WITH   LOVERS         143 

wishes  he  had  been  born  with  the  gills  of  a  fish  so  that  he 
might  dive  into  the  sea  to  visit  the  nymph  Galatea  and  kiss 
her  hands  should  her  mouth  be  refused.  One  of  the  goat- 
herds of  the  same  bucolic  poet  wishes  he  were  a  bee  that  he 
might  fly  to  the  grotto  of  Amaryllis.  From  such  fancies  it 
is  but  a  short  step  to  the  "  were  I  a  swallow,  to  her  I  would 
fly  "  of  Heine  and  other  modern  poets. 


NATURE'S  SYMPATHY  WITH  LOVERS 

In  the  ecstasy  of  his  feeling  Rosalind's  lover  wants  to  have 
her  name  carved  on  every  tree  in  the  forest ;  but  usually  the 
lover  assumes  that  all  things  in  the  forests,  plants  or  ani- 
mals, sympathize  with  him  even  without  having  his  beloved's 
name  thrust  upon  them. 

For  summer  and  his  pleasures  wait  on  thee, 
And,  thou  away,  the  very  birds  are  mute ; 
Or  if  they  sing,  't  is  with  so  dull  a  cheer, 
That  leaves  look  pale,  dreading  the  winter's  near. 

"Why  are  the  roses  so  pale?"  asks  Heine.  "Why  are 
the  violets  so  dumb  in  the  green  grass  ?  Why  does  the 
lark's  song  seem  so  sad,  and  why  have  the  flowers  lost  their 
fragrance  ?  Why  does  the  sun  look  down  upon  the  meadows  so 
cold  and  morose,  and  why  is  the  earth  so  gray  and  desolate  ? 
Why  am  I  ill  and  melancholy,  and  why,  my  love,  did  you 
leave  me?"  In  another  poem  Heine  declares:  "If  the 
flowers  knew  how  deeply  my  heart  is  wounded,  they  would 
weep  with  me.  If  the  nightingales  knew  how  sad  I  am, 
they  would  cheer  me  with  their  refreshing  song.  If  the 
golden  stars  knew  my  grief,  they  would  come  t*own  from 
their  heights  to  whisper  consolation  to  me." 

This  phase  of  amorous  hyperbole  also  was  known  .to  the  an- 
cient poets.  Theocritus  (VII.,  74)  relates  that  Daphnis  was 
bewailed  by  the  oaks  that  stood  on  the  banks  of  the  river, 
and  Ovid  (151)  tells  us,  in  Sappho's  epistle  to  Phaon>  that  the 
leafless  branches  sighed  over  her  hopeless  love  and  the  birds 
stopped  their  sweet  song.  Musaeus  felt  that  the  waters  of 


144  ROMANTIC   LOVE— HYPERBOLE 

the  Hellespont  were  still  lamenting  the  fate  which  overtook 
Leander  as  he  swam  toward  the  tower  of  Hero. 


ROMANTIC   BUT   NOT   LOVING 

If  a  romantic  love-poem  were  necessarily  a  poem  of  ro- 
mantic love,  the  specimens  of  amorous  hyperbole  cited  in  the 
preceding  pages  would  indicate  that  the  ancients  knew  love  as 
we  know  it.  In  reality,  however,  there  is  not,  in  all  the  ex- 
amples cited,  the  slightest  evidence  of  genuine  love.  A  passion 
which  is  merely  sensual  may  inspire  a  gifted  poet  to  the  most 
extravagantly  fanciful  expressions  of  covetous  admiration, 
and  in  all  the  cases  cited  there  is  nothing  beyond  such  sensual 
admiration.  An  African  Harari  compares  the  girl  he  likes 
to  "  sweet  milk  fresh  from  the  cow,"  and  considers  that 
coarse  remark  a  compliment  because  he  knows  love  only  as  an 
appetite.  A  gypsy  poet  compares  the  shoulders  of  his  be- 
loved to  "wheat  bread,"  and  a  Turkish  poem  eulogizes  a 
girl  for  being  like  "  bread  fried  in  butter."  (Ploss,  L,  85, 
89.) 

The  ancient  poets  had  too  much  taste  to  reveal  their  amor- 
ous desires  quite  so  bluntly  as  an  appetite,  yet  they,  too,  never 
went  beyond  the  confines  of  self-indulgence.  When  Pro- 
pertius  says  a  girl's  cheeks  are  like  roses  floating  on  milk  ; 
when  Tibullus  declares  another  girl's  eyes  are  bright  enough 
to  light  a  torch  by  ;  when  Achilles  Tatius  makes  his  lover  ex- 
claim :  "  Surely  you  must  carry  about  a  bee  on  your  lips,  they 
are  full  of  honey,  your  kisses  wound  " — what  is  all  this  except 
a  revelation  that  the  poet  thinks  the  girl  pretty,  that  her 
beauty  gives  him  pleasure,  and  that  he  tries  to  express  that 
pleasure  by  comparing  her  to  some  other  object — sun,  moon, 
honey,  flowers — that  pleases  his  senses  ?  Nowhere  is  there 
the  slightest  indication  that  he  is  eager  to  give  her  pleasure, 
much  less  that  he  would  be  willing  to  sacrifice  his  own 
pleasures  for  her,  as  a  mother,  for  instance,  would  for  a  child. 
His  hyperboles,  in  a  word,  tell  us  not  of  love  for  another  but 
of  a  self-love  in  which  the  other  figures  only  as  a  means  to 
an  end,  that  end  being  his  own  gratification. 


ROMANTIC   BUT   NOT   LOVING  145 

When  Anacreon  wishes  he  were  the  gown  worn  by  a  girl,  or 
the  water  that  laves  her  limbs,  or  the  string  of  pearls  around 
her  neck,  he  does  not  indicate  the  least  desire  to  make  her 
happy,  but  an  eagerness  to  please  himself  by  coming  in  con- 
tact with  her.  The  daintiest  poetic  conceit  cannot  conceal 
this  blunt  fact.  Even  the  most  fanciful  of  all  forms  of  amo- 
rous hyperbole — that  in  which  the  lover  imagines  that  all 
nature  smiles  or  weeps  with  him — what  is  it  but  the  most 
colossal  egotism  conceivable  ? 

The  amorous  hyperbole  of  the  ancients  is  romantic  in  the 
sense  of  fanciful,  fictitious,  extravagant,  but  not  in  the  sense 
in  which  I  oppose  romantic  love  to  selfish  sensual  infatua- 
tion. There  is  no  intimation  in  it  of  those  things  that  dif- 
ferentiate love  from  lust — the  mental  and  moral  charms  of 
the  women,  or  the  adoration,  sympathy,  and  affection  of  the 
men.  When  one  of  Goethe's  characters  says  :  "  My  life  be- 
gan at  the  moment  I  fell  in  love  with  you  ; "  or  when  one  of 
Lessing's  characters  exclaims  :  "  To  live  apart  from  her  is 
inconceivable  to  me,  would  be  my  death  " — we  still  hear  the 
note  of  selfishness,  but  with  harmonic  overtones  that  change 
its  quality,  the  result  of  a  change  in  the  way  of  regarding 
women.  Where  women  are  looked  down  on  as  inferiors,  as 
among  the  ancients,  amorous  hyperbole  cannot  be  sincere ; 
it  is  either  nothing  but  i(  spruce  affectation"  or  else  an  illus- 
tration of  the  power  of  sensual  love.  No  ancient  author 
could  have  written  what  Emerson  wrote  in  his  essay  on  Love, 
of  the  visitations  of  a  power  which 

"made  the  face  of  nature  radiant  with  purple  light,  the 
morning  and  the  night  varied  enchantments  ;  when  a  single 
tone  of  one  voice  could  make  the  heart  bound,  and  the  most 
trivial  circumstance  associated  with  one  form  is  put  in  the 
amber  of  memory  ;  when  he  became  all  eye  when  one  was 
present,  and  all  memory  when  one  was  gone ;  when  the  youth 
becomes  a  watcher  of  windows  and  studious  of  a  glove,  a  veil, 
a  ribbon,  or  the  wheels  of  a  carriage.  .  .  .  When  the 
head  boiled  all  night  on  the  pillow  Avith  the  generous  deed  it 
resolved  on.  ...  When  all  business  seemed  an  im- 
pertinence, and  all  men  and  women  running  to  and  fro  in 
the  streets,  mere  pictures." 


146  ROMANTIC    LOVE— HYPERBOLE 


THE   POWER   OF   LOVE 

In  the  essay  "  On  the  Power  of  Love,"  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred in  another  place,  Lichtenberg  bluntly  declared  he  did 
not  believe  that  sentimental  love  could  make  a  sensible  adult 
person  so  extravagantly  happy  or  unhappy  as  the  poets  would 
have  us  think,  whereas  he  was  ready  to  concede  that  the  sexual 
appetite  may  become  irresistible.  Schopenhauer,  on  the  con- 
trary, held  that  sentimental  love  is  the  more  powerful  of  the 
two  passions.  However  this  may  be,  either  is  strong  enough  to 
account  for  the  prevalence  of  amorous  hyperbole  in  literature 
to  such  an  extent  that,  as  Bacon  remarked,  "  speaking  in  a  per- 
petual hyperbole  is  comely  in  nothing  but  in  love."  "The  major 
part  of  lovers,"  writes  Robert  Burton,  '•'  are  carried  headlong 
like  so  many  brute  beasts,  reason  counsels  one  way,  thy  friends, 
fortunes,  shame,  disgrace,  danger,  and  an  ocean  of  cares  that 
will  certainly  follow  ;  yet  this  furious  lust  precipitates,  coun- 
terpoiseth,  weighs  down  on  the  other."  Professor  Bain,  dis- 
cussing all  the  human  emotions  in  a  volume  of  600  pages, 
declares,  regarding  love  (138),  that  "  the  excitement  at  its 
highest  pitch,  in  the  torrent  of  youthful  sensations  and  un- 
gratified  desires  is  probably  the  most  furious  and  elated  ex- 
perience of  human  nature."  In  whatever  sense  we  take  this, 
as  referring  to  sensual  or  sentimental  love,  or  a  combination 
of  the  two,  it  explains  why  erotic  writers  of  all  times  make 
such  lavish  use  of  superlatives  and  exaggerations.  Their  strong 
feelings  can  only  be  expressed  in  strong  language.  "  Beauty 
inflicts  a  wound  sharper  than  any  arrow,"  quoth  Achilles 
Tatius.  Meleager  declares  :  "  Even  the  winged  Eros  in  the 
air  became  your  prisoner,  sweet  Timarion,  because  your  eye 
drew  him  down  ; "  and  in  another  place  :  ( ( the  cup  is  filled 
with  joy  because  it  is  allowed  to  touch  the  beautiful  lips  of 
Zenophila.  Would  that  she  drank  my  soul  in  one  draught, 
pressing  firmly  her  lips  on  mine  "  (a  passage  which  Tennyson 
imitated  in  "he  once  drew  with  one  long  kiss  my  whole  soul 
through  my  lips  ").  "  Not  stone  only,  but  steel  would  be  melted 
by  Bros, "  cried  Antipater  of  Sidon.  Burton  tells  of  a  cold  bath 


THE    POWER   OF   LOVE  147 

that  suddenly  smoked  and  was  very  hot  when  Ccelia  came 
into  it ;  and  an  anonymous  modern  poet  cries  : 

Look  yonder,  where 

She  washes  in  the  lake ! 
See  while  she  swims, 
The  water  from  her  purer  limbs 

New  clearness  take ! 

The  Persian  poet,  Saadi,  tells  the  story  of  a  young  enam- 
oured Dervish  who  knew  the  whole  Koran  by  heart,  but  forgot 
his  very  alphabet  in  presence  of  the  princess.  She  tried  to  en- 
courage him,  but  he  only  found  tongue  to  say,  "  It  is  strange 
that  with  thee  present  I  should  have  speech  left  me ; "  and 
having  said  that  he  uttered  a  loud  groan  and  surrendered  his 
soul  up  to  God. 

To  lovers  nothing  seems  impossible.  They  "vow  to  weep 
seas,  live  in  fire>  eat  rocks,  tame  tigers,"  as  Troilus  knew. 
Mephistopheles  exclaims  : 

So  ein  verliebter  Thor  verpufft 

Euch  Sonne,  Mond  und  alle  Sterne 

Zum  Zeitvertreib  dem  Liebchen  in  die  Luft. 

(Your  foolish  lover  squanders  sun  and  moon  and  all  the 
stars  to  entertain  his  darling  for  an  hour.)  Romantic  hyper- 
bole is  the  realism  of  love.  The  lover  is  blind  as  to  the  be- 
loved's faults,  and  color-blind  as  to  her  merits,  seeing  them 
differently  from  normal  persons  and  all  in  a  rosy  hue.  She 
really  seems  to  him  superior  to  every  one  in  the  world,  and  he 
would  be  ready  any  moment  to  join  the  ranks  of  the  mediaeval 
knights  who  translated  amorous  hyperbole  into  action,  chal- 
lenging every  knight  to  battle  unless  he  acknowledged  the 
superior  beauty  of  his  lady.  A  great  romancer  is  the  lover  ; 
he  retouches  the  negative  of  his  beloved,  in  his  imagination, 
removes  freckles,  moulds  the  nose,  rounds  the  cheeks,  refines 
the  lips,  and  adds  lustre  to  the  eyes  until  his  ideal  is  realized 
and  he  sees  Helen's  beauty  in  a  brow  of  Egypt. 

.     .     .     For  to  be  wise  and  love 
Exceeds  man's  might;  that  dwells  with  gods  above. 


148  ROMANTIC    LOVE— PRIDE 


VII.     PEIDE 

I  dare  not  ask  a  kiss, 

I  dare  not  beg  a  smile, 
Lest  having  that  or  this 

I  might  grow  proud  the  while. — Herrick. 

Let  fools  great  Cupid's  yoke  disdain, 

Loving  their  own  wild  freedom  better, 
Whilst  proud  of  my  triumphant  chain 

I  sit,  and  court  my  beauteous  fetter. — Beaumont. 

COMIC   SIDE   OF   LOVE 

"  There  was  never  proud  man  thought  so  absurdly  well  of 
himself  as  the  lover  doth  of  the  person  beloved,"  said  Bacon  ; 
"  and  therefore  it  is  well  said  that  it  is  impossible  to  love 
and  be  wise." 

Like  everything  else  in  this  world,  love  has  its  comic  side. 
Nothing  could  be  more  amusing,  surely,  than  the  pride  some 
men  and  women  exhibit  at  having  secured  for  life  a  mate  whom 
most  persons  would  not  care  to  own  a  day.  The  idealizing 
process  just  described  is  responsible  for  this  comedy ;  and  a  very 
useful  thing  it  is,  too  ;  for  did  not  the  lover's  fancy  magnify 
the  merits  and  minify  the  faults  of  the  beloved,  the  number 
of  marriages  would  not  be  so  large  as  it  is.  Pride  is  a  great 
match-maker.  "It  was  a  proud  night  with  me,"  wrote  Wal- 
ter Scott,  "  when  I  first  found  that  a  pretty  young  woman 
could  think  it  worth  her  while  to  sit  and  talk  with  me  hour 
after  hour  in  a  corner  of  the  ball-room,  while  all  the  world 
were  capering  in  our  view."  Such  an  experience  was  enough 
to  attune  the  heart-strings  to  love.  The  youth  felt  flattered, 
and  flattery  is  the  food  of  love. 

A   MYSTERY   EXPLAINED 

Pride  explains  some  of  the  greatest  mysteries  of  love. 
"How  could  that  woman  have  married  such  a  manikin  ?"  is 
a  question  one  often  hears.  Money,  rank,  opportunity,  lack 
of  taste,  account  for  much,  but  in  many  instances  it  was  pride 
that  first  opened  the  heart  to  love  ;  that  is,  pride  was  the  first 


IMPORTANCE    OF   PRIDE  149 

of  the  ingredients  of  love  to  capitulate,  and  the  others  followed 
suit.  Probably  that  manikin  was  the  first  masculine  being 
who  ever  showed  her  any  attentions.  "  He  appreciates  me  !  " 
she  mused.  "  I  admire  his  taste — he  is  not  like  other  men — 
I  like  him — I  love  him." 

The  compliment  of  a  proposal  touches  a  girl's  pride  and 
may  prove  the  entering- wedge  of  love  ;  hence  the  proverbial 
folly  of  accepting  a  girl's  first  refusal  as  final.  And  if  she 
accepts,  the  thought  that  she,  the  most  perfect  being  in  the 
world,  prefers  him  above  all  men,  inflates  his  pride  to  the 
point  of  exultation  ;  thenceforth  he  can  talk  and  think  only 
in  "  three  pil'd  hyperboles/'  He  wants  all  the  world  to  know 
how  he  has  been  distinguished.  In  a  Japanese  poem  transla- 
ted by  Lafcadio  Hearn  (G.  B.  F.,  38)  a  lover  exclaims  : 

I  cannot  hide  in  my  heart  the  happy  knowledge  that  fills  it  ; 
Asking  each  not  to  tell,  I  spread  the  news  all  round. 

IMPORTANCE   OF   PRIDE 

To  realize  fully  how  important  an  ingredient  in  love  pride 
is,  we  need  only  consider  the  effect  of  a  refusal.  Of  all  the 
pangs  that  make  up  its  agony  none  is  keener  than  that  of 
wounded  pride  or  vanity.  Hence  the  same  lover  who,  if  suc- 
cessful, wants  all  the  world  to  know  how  he  has  been  distin- 
guished, is  equally  anxious,  in  case  of  a  refusal,  to  keep  it  a 
secret.  Schopenhauer  went  so  far  as  to  assert  that  both  in  the 
pain  of  unrequited  love  and  the  joy  of  success,  vanity  is  a 
more  important  factor  than  the  thwarting  of  sensual  desires, 
because  only  a  psychic  disturbance  can  stir  us  so  deeply. 

Shakspere  knew  that  while  there  are  many  kinds  of  pride, 
the  best  and  deepest  is  that  which  a  man  feels  in  his  love. 
Some,  he  says,  glory  in  their  birth,  some  in  their  skill,  some 
in  their  wealth,  some  in  their  body's  force,  or  their  garments, 
or  horses  ;  but 

All  these  I  better  in  one  general  best, 

Thy  love  is  better  than  high  birth  to  me, 
Richer  than  wealth,  prouder  than  garments'  cost, 

Of  more  delight  than  hawks  and  horses  be 
And  having  thee,  of  all  men's  pride  I  boast. — Sonnet  XCL 


150  ROMANTIC    LOVE— PRIDE 


VAKIETIES   AND    GERMS 

While  amorous  pride  has  also  an  altruistic  aspect  in  so  far 
as  the  lover  is  proud  not  only  of  being  chosen  but  also  of  an- 
other's perfections,  it  nevertheless  belongs,  in  the  main,  in  the 
egoistic  group,  and  there  is  therefore  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  look  for  it  in  the  lower  stages  of  erotic  evolution.  Pride 
and  vanity  are  feelings  which  characterize  all  grades  of  human 
beings  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  As  regards  amorous 
pride,  however,  it  is  obvious  that  the  conditions  for  its  exist- 
ence are  not  favorable  among  such  aboriginals,  e.g.,  as  the 
Australians.  What  occasion  is  there  for  pride  on  the  part  of 
a  man  who  exchanges  his  sister  or  daughter  for  another  man's 
sister  or  daughter,  or  on  the  part  of  the  female  who  is  thus 
exchanged  ?  An  American  Indian's  pride  consists  not  in 
having  won  the  favor  of  one  particular  girl,  but  in  having 
been  able  to  buy  or  steal  as  many  women  as  possible,  married 
or  unmarried  ;  and  the  bride's  pride  is  proportionate  to  her 
lover's  prowess  in  this  direction.  I  need  not  add  that  the 
pride  at  being  a  successful  squaw-stealer  differs  not  only  in 
degree  but  in  kind  from  the  exultation  of  a  white  American 
lover  at  the  thought  that  the  most  beautiful  and  perfect  girl 
in  the  world  has  chosen  him  above  all  men  as  her  sole  and 
exclusive  sweetheart. 

Gibbs  says  (I.,  197-200)  of  the  Indians  of  Western  Wash- 
ington and  Northwestern  Oregon  that  they  usually  seek  their 
wives  among  other  tribes  than  their  own.  "  It  seems  to  be  a 
matter  of  pride,  in  fact,  to  unite  the  blood  of  several  different 
ones  in  their  own  persons.  The  expression,  I  am  half  Snok- 
walmu,  half  Klikatat,  or  some  similar  one,  is  of  every-day  oc- 
currence. With  the  chiefs,  this  is  almost  always  the  case." 
This  feeling,  however,  is  of  a  tribal  kind,  lacking  the  indi- 
viduality of  amorous  pride.  It  would  approach  the  latter  if 
a  chief  won  another  chief's  daughter  in  the  face  of  rivalry 
and  felt  elated  at  this  feat.  Such  cases  doubtless  occur 
among  the  Indians. 

Shooter  gives  an  amusing  account  of  how  the  African  Kaf- 
firs, when  a  girl  is  averse  to  a  marriage,  attempt  to  influence 


VARIETIES   AND   GERMS  151 

her  feelings  before  resorting  to  compulsion.  "  The  first  step 
is  to  speak  well  of  the  man  in  her  presence  ;  the  Kraal  con- 
spire to  praise  him — her  mother  praises  him  —  all  the  ad- 
mirers of  his  cattle  praise  him — he  was  never  so  praised  be- 
fore." If  these  praises  make  her  feel  proud  at  the  thought 
of  marrying  such  a  man,  all  is  well  ;  if  not,  she  has  to  suffer 
the  consequences.  It  is  not  likely  that  this  praising  practice 
would  prevail  were  it  not  sometimes  successful. 

If  it  ever  is,  we  would  have  here  a  germ  of  amorous  pride. 
Others  may  be  found  in  Hindoo  literature,  as  in  Malati  and 
Madfiava,  where  the  intermediary  speaks  of  having  dwelt 
on  the  lover's  merits  and  rank  in  the  presence  of  the  heroine, 
in  the  hope  of  influencing  her.  "  Extolling  the  lover's  merits  " 
is  mentioned  as  one  of  the  ten  stages  of  love  in  the  Hindoo 
ars  amandi. 

In  Oriental  countries  in  general,  where  it  is  difficult  or 
impossible  for  young  men  and  women  to  see  one  another 
before  the  wedding-day,  the  praising  of  candidates  by  and  to 
intermediaries  has  been  a  general  custom.  Dr.  T.  Lobel  (9-14) 
relates  that  before  a  Turk  reaches  the  age  of  twenty- two  his 
parents  look  about  for  a  bride  for  him.  They  send  out 
female  friends  and  intermediaries  who  "  praise  and  exagger- 
ate the  accomplishments  of  the  young  man  "  in  houses  where 
they  suspect  the  presence  of  eligible  girls.  These  female 
intermediaries  are  called  kyz-gorudschii  or  "  girl-seers." 
Having  found  a  maiden  that  appears  suitable,  they  exclaim, 
"  What  a  lovely  girl  !  She  resembles  an  angel !  What 
beautiful  eyes  !  True  gazelle-eyes  !  And  her  hair  !  Her 
teeth  are  like  pearls."  When  the  young  man  hears  the 
reports  of  this  beauty,  he  forthwith  falls  in  love  with  her, 
and,  although  he  has  never  seen  her,  declares  he  "will 
marry  her  and  no  other."  A  sense  of  humor  is  not  given  to 
every  man  :  Dr.  Lobel  remarks  seriously  that  this  disproves 
the  slanderous  assertion  so  often  made  that  the  Turks  are 
incapable  of  true  love  ! 

In  their  treatment  and  estimate  of  women  the  ancient 
Greeks  resembled  the  modern  Turks.  The  poets  joined  the 
philosophers  in  declaring  that  "nature  herself,"  as  Becker 


152  ROMANTIC    LOVE— PRIDE 

sums  them  np  (III.,  315),  "assigned  to  woman  a  position  far 
beneath  man."  As  there  is  little  occasion  for  pride  in  having 
won  the  favor  of  so  inferior  a  being,  the  erotic  literature  of 
the  Greeks  is  naturally  not  eloquent  on  this  subject.  Such 
evidence  of  amorous  pride  as  we  find  in  it,  and  in  Roman 
poetry,  is  usually  in  connection  with  mercenary  women. 
The  poets,  being  poor,  had  only  one  way  of  winning  the 
favor  of  these  wantons  :  they  could  celebrate  their  charms  in 
verse.  This  aroused  the  pride  of  the  hetairai,  and  their 
grateful  caresses  made  the  poets  proud  at  having  a  means  of 
winning  favor  more  powerful  even  than  money.  But  with 
genuine  love  these  feelings  have  nothing  to  do. 


NATURAL   AND    ARTIFICIAL   SYMPTOMS   OF   LOVE 

V 

In  common  with  ambition  and  other  strong  passions,  love 
has  the  power  of  changing  a  man's  character  for  the  time 
being.  One  of  the  speakers  in  Plutarch's  dialogue  on  love 
(EpumKos,  17)  declares  that  every  lover  becomes  generous  and 
magnanimous,  though  he  may  have  been  niggardly  before  ; 
but,  characteristically  enough,  it  is  the  love  for  boys,  not  for 
women,  that  is  referred  to.  A  modern  lover  is  affected  that 
way  by  love  for  women.  He  feels  proud  of  being  distin- 
guished by  the  preference  of  such  a  girl,  and  on  the  principle 
of  noblesse  oblige,  he  tries  to  become  worthy  of  her.  This  love 
makes  the  cowardly  brave,  the  weak  strong,  the  dull  witty, 
the  prosy  poetic,  the  slouches  tidy.  Burton  glows  eloquent 
on  this  subject  (III.,  2),  confounding,  as  usual,  love  with  lust. 
Ovid  notes  that  Avhen  Polyphemus  courted  Galatea  the  desire 
to  please  made  him  arrange  his  hair  and  beard,  using  the 
water  as  a  mirror ;  wherein  the  Roman  poet  shows  a  keener 
sense  of  the  effect  of  infatuation  than  his  Greek  predecessor, 
Theocritus,  who  .(Id.,  XIV.)  describes  the  enamoured  Ais- 
chines  as  going  about  with  beard  neglected  and  hair  dishev- 
elled ;  or  than  Oallimachus,  concerning  whose  love-story  of 
Acontius  and  Cydippe  Mahaffy  says  (G.  L.  and  T.,  239) : 

"  The  pangs  of  the  lover  are  described  just  as  they 
are  described  in  the  case  of  his  [Shakspere's]  Orlando — 


SYMPTOMS   OF   LOVE  153 

dishevelled  hair,  blackness  under  the  eyes,  disordered  dress, 
a  desire  for  solitude,  and  the  habit  of  writing  the  girl's  name 
on  every  tree — symptoms  which  are  perhaps  now  regarded  as 
natural,  and  which  many  romantic  personages  have  no  doubt 
imitated  because  they  found  them  in  literature,  and  thought 
them  the  spontaneous  expression  of  the  grief  of  love,  while 
they  were  really  the  artificial  invention  of  Oallimachus  and 
his  school,  who  thus  fathered  them  upon  human  nature." 

Professor  Mahaffy  overlooks,  however,  an  important  dis- 
tinction which  Shakspere  makes.  The  witty  Rosalind  de- 
clares to  Orlando,  in  her  bantering  way,  that  "there  is  a 
man  haunts  the  forest,  that  abuses  our  young  plants  with 
carving  '  Rosalind '  on  their  barks  ;  hangs  odes  upon  haw- 
thorns and  elegies  on  brambles,  all,  forsooth,  deifying  the 
name  of  Rosalind  .  .  .  he  seems  to  have  the  quotidian  of 
love  upon  him."  And  when  Orlando  claims  that  he  is  that 
man,  she  replies,  "  There  is  none  of  my  uncle's  marks  upon 
you  ;  he  taught  me  to  know  a  man  in  love." 

Orlando  :  "  What  were  his  marks  ?  " 

Rosalind  :  "  A  lean  cheek,  which  you  have  not,  a  blue  eye 
and  sunken,  which  you  have  not  ...  a  beard  neglected, 
which  you  have  not.  .  .  .  Then  your  hose  should  be  un- 
gartered,  your  bonnet  unbanded,  your  sleeve  unbuttoned, 
your  shoe  untied,  and  everything  about  you  demonstrating  a 
careless  desolation." 

Shakspere  knew  that  love  makes  a  man  tidy,  not  untidy, 
hence  Rosalind  fails  to  find  the  artificial  Greek  symptoms  of 
love  in  Orlando,  while  she  admits  that  he  carves  her  name 
on  trees  and  hangs  poems  on  them  ;  acts  of  which  lovers  are 
quite  capable.  In  Japan  it  is  a  national  custom  to  hang  love- 
poems  on  trees. 


VIII.     SYMPATHY 

"  Egotism/'  wrote  Schopenhauer  "  is  a  colossal  thing  ;  it 
overtops  the  world.  For,  if  every  individual  had  the  choice  be- 
tween his  own  destruction  and  that  of  every  other  person  in  the 
world,  I  need  not  say  what  the  decision  would  be  in  the  vast 


154  ROMANTIC    LOVE— SYMPATHY 

majority  of  cases."  "  Many  a  man,"  he  declares  on  another 
page,1  "  would  be  capable  of  killing  another  merely  to  get  some 
fat  to  smear  on  his  boots."  The  grim  old  pessimist  confesses 
that  at  first  he  advanced  this  opinion  as  a  hyperbole  ;  but  on 
second  thought  he  doubts  if  it  is  an  exaggeration  after  all. 
Had  he  been  more  familiar  with  the  habits  of  savages,  he 
would  have  been  fully  justified  in  this  doubt.  An  Australian 
has  been  known  to  bait  his  fish-hook  with  his  own  child  when 
no  other  meat  was  at  hand  ;  and  murders  committed  for 
equally  trivial  and  selfish  reasons  are  every-day  affairs  among 
wild  tribes. 

EGOTISM,    NAKED   OR  MASKED  i 

Egoism  manifests  itself  in  a  thousand  different  ways,  often 
in  subtle  disguise.  Its  greatest  triumph  lies  in  its  having 
succeeded  up  to  the  present  day  in  masquerading  as  love. 
Not  only  many  modern  egotists,  but  ancient  Egyptians,  Per- 
sians, and  Hindoos,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  barbarians  and 
savages,  have  been  credited  with  love  when  in  reality  they 
manifested  nothing  but  sexual  self-love,  the  woman  in  the 
case  being  valued  only  as  an  object  without  which  the  be- 
loved Ego  could  not  have  its  selfish  indulgence.  By  way  of 
example  let  us  take  what  Pallas  says  in  his  work  on  Russia 
(III.,  70)  of  the  Samoyedes  :  "The  wretched  women  of  this 
nomadic  people  are  obliged  not  only  to  do  all  the  house-work, 
but  to  take  down  and  erect  the  huts,  pack  and  unpack  the 
sleigh,  and  at  the  same  time  perform  slavish  duties  for  their 
husbands,  who,  except  on  a  few  amorous  evenings,  hardly  be- 
stow on  them  a  look  or  a  pleasant  word,  while  expecting  them 
to  anticipate  all  their  desires."  The  typical  shallow  observer, 
whose  testimony  has  done  so  much  to  prevent  anthropology 
from  being  a  science,  would  conclude,  if  he  happened  to  see 
a  Samoyede  on  one  of  these  "amorous  evenings,"  that  he 
"  loved"  his  wife,  whereas  it  ought  to  be  clear  to  the  most 
obtuse  that  he  loves  only  himself,  caring  for  his  wife  merely 
as  a  means  of  gratifying  his  selfish  appetites.  In  the  preced- 

1  Grundlage  der  Moral,  §  14. 


DELIGHT   IN   THE   TORTURE   OF   OTHERS     155 

ing  pages  I  endeavored  to  show  that  such  a  man  may  exhibit, 
in  his  relations  to  a  woman,  individual  preference,  monopol- 
ism, jealousy,  hope  and  despair  and  hyperbolic  expression  of 
feeling,  yet  without  giving  the  slightest  indication  of  love — 
that  is,  of  affection — for  her.  It  is  all  egoism,  and  egoism  is 
the  antipode  of  love,  which  is  a  phase  of  altruism.  Not  that 
these  selfish  ingredients  are  absent  in  genuine  love.  Seman- 
tic love  embraces  both  selfish  and  altruistic  elements,  but  the 
former  are  subdued  and  overpowered  by  the  latter,  and  sexual 
passion  is  not  love  unless  the  altruistic  ingredients  are  present. 
It  is  these  altruistic  ingredients  that  we  must  now  consider, 
beginning  with  sympathy,  which  is  the  entering  wedge  of 
altruism. 

DELIGHT  IN   THE   TORTURE   OF   OTHERS 

Sympathy  means  sharing  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  an- 
other— feeling  the  other's  joys  and  sorrows  as  if  they  were 
our  own,  and  therefore  an  eagerness  to  diminish  the  other's 
pains  and  increase  the  pleasures.  Does  uncivilized  man  ex- 
hibit this  feeling  ?  On  the  contrary,  he  gloats  over  another's 
anguish,  while  the  other's  joys  arouse  his  envy.  Pity  for 
suffering  men  and  animals  does  not  exist  in  the  lower  strata 
of  humanity.  Monteiro  says  (A.  and  C.,  134)  that  the  negro 

"  has  not  the  slightest  idea  of  mercy,  pity,  or  compassion  for 
suffering.  A  fellow-creature,  or  animal,  writhing  in  pain  or 
torture,  is  to  him  a  sight  highly  provocative  of  merriment 
and  enjoyment.  I  have  seen  a  number  of  blacks  at  Loanda, 
men,  women,  and  children,  stand  round,  roaring  with  laugh- 
ter, at  seeing  a  poor  mongrel  dog  that  had  been  run  over  by 
a  cart,  twist  and  roll  about  in  agony  on  the  ground  till  a 
white  man  put  it  out  of  its  misery." 

Cozzens  relates  (129-30)  an  instance  of  Indian  cruelty  which 
he  witnessed  among  the  Apaches.  A  mule,  with  his  feet  tied, 
was  thrown  on  the  ground.  Thereupon  two  of  these  savages 
advanced  and  commenced  with  knives  to  cut  the  meat  from 
the  thighs  and  fleshy  parts  of  the  animal  in  large  chunks, 
while  the  poor  creature  uttered  the  most  terrible  cries.  Not 
till  the  meat  had  been  cut  clean  to  the  bone  did  they  kill  the 


156  ROMANTIC    LOVE— SYMPATHY 

beast.  And  this  hideous  cruelty  was  inflicted  for  no  other 
reason  than  because  meat  cut  from  a  live  animal  "  was  con- 
sidered more  tender."  Ouster,  who  knew  the  Indian  well, 
describes  him  as  "  a  savage  in  every  sense  of  the  word  ;  one 
whose  cruel  and  ferocious  nature  far  exceeds  that  of  any  wild 
beast  of  the  desert."  In  the  Jesuit  Relations  (Vol.  XIII., 
61)  it  takes  ten  pages  to  describe  the  tortures  inflicted  by  the 
Hurons  on  a  captive.  Theodore  Roosevelt  writes  in  his 
Winning  of  the  West  (I.,  95) : 

"  The  nature  of  the  wild  Indians  has  not  changed.  Not 
one  man  in  a  hundred,  and  not  a  single  woman,  escapes  tor- 
ments which  a  civilized  man  cannot  so  much  as  look  another 
in  the  face  and  speak  of.  Impalement  on  charred  stakes, 
finger-nails  split  off'  backwards,  finger-joints  chewed  off,  eyes 
burned  out — these  tortures  can  be  mentioned,  but  there  are 
others,  equally  normal  and  customary,  which  cannot  even  be 
hinted  at,  especially  when  women  are  the  victims." 

In  his  famous  book,  The  Jesuits  in  North  America,  the 
historian  Parkman  gives  many  harrowing  details  of  Indian 
cruelty  toward  prisoners  ;  harmless  women  and  children  being 
subjected  to  the  same  fiendish  tortures  as  the  men.  On  one 
occasion  he  relates  of  the  Iroquois  (285)  that 

"  they  planted  stakes  in  the  bark  houses  of  St.  Ignace,  and 
bound  to  them  those  of  their  prisoners  whom  they  meant  to 
sacrifice,  male  and  female,  from  old  age  to  infancy,  husbands, 
mothers,  and  children,  side  by  side.  Then,  as  they  retreated, 
they  set  the  town  on  fire,  and  laughed  with  savage  glee  at  the 
shrieks  of  anguish  that  rose  from  the  blazing  dwellings." 

On  page  248  he  relates  another  typical  instance  of  Iroquois 
cruelty.  Among  their  prisoners 

"  were  three  women,  of  whom  the  narrator  was  one,  who  had 
each  a  child  of  a  few  weeks  or  months  old.  At  the  first  halt, 
their  captors  took  the  infants  from  them,  tied  them  to  wooden 
spits,  placed  them  to  die  slowly  before  a  fire,  and  feasted  on 
them  before  the  eyes  of  the  agonized  mothers,  whose  shrieks, 
supplications,  and  frantic  efforts  to  break  the  cords  that 
bound  them  were  met  with  mockery  and  laughter." 

Later  on  all  the  prisoners  were  subjected  to  further  tortures 
"  designed  to  cause  all  possible  suffering  without  touching 


DELIGHT   IN   THE   TORTURE   OF   OTHERS     157 

life.  It  consisted  in  blows  with  sticks  and  cudgels,  gashing 
their  limbs  with  knives,  cutting  off  their  fingers  with  clam- 
shells, scorching  them  with  firebrands,  and  other  indescriba- 
ble tortures/'  They  cut  off  the  breasts  of  one  of  the  women 
and  compelled  her  to  eat  them.  Then  all  the  women  were 
stripped  naked,  and  forced  to  dance  to  the  singing  of  the  male 
prisoners,  amid  the  applause  and  laughter  of  the  crowd. 

If  anyone  in  this  hostile  crowd  had  shown  the  slightest 
sympathy  with  the  victims  of  this  satanic  cruelty,  he  would 
have  been  laughed  at  and  insulted  ;  for  to  the  American  Ind- 
ians ferocity  was  a  virtue,  while  "  pity  was  a  cowardly  weak- 
ness at  which  their  pride  revolted."  They  were  deliberately 
trained  to  cruelty  from  infancy,  children  being  taught  to 
break  the  legs  of  animals  and  otherwise  to  torture  them.  Nor 
were  the  women  less  ferocious  than  the  men  ;  indeed,  when 
it  came  to  torturing  prisoners,  the  squaws  often  led  the  men. 
In  the  face  of  such  facts,  it  seems  almost  like  mockery  to  ask 
if  these  Indians  were  capable  of  falling  in  love.  Could  a  Huron 
to  whom  cruelty  was  a  virtue,  a  duty,  and  whose  chief  delight 
was  the  torture  of  men  and  women  or  animals,  have  harbored 
in  his  mind  such  a  delicate,  altruistic  sentiment  as  romantic 
love,  based  on  sympathy  with  another's  joys  and  sorrows  ? 
You  might  as  well  expect  a  tiger  to  make  romantic  love  to 
the  Bengal  maiden  he  has  carried  into  the  jungle  for  his  sup- 
per. Cruelty  is  not  incompatible  with  appetite,  but  it  is  a 
fatal  obstacle  to  love  based  on  affection.  Facts  prove  this 
natural  inference.  The  Iroquois  girls  were  coarse  wantons 
who  indulged  in  free  lust  before  marriage,  and  for  whom 
the  men  felt  such  passion  as  is  possible  under  the  circum- 
stances. 

The  absurdity  of  the  claim  that  these  cruel  Indians  felt 
love  is  made  more  glaringly  obvious  if  we  take  a  case  nearer 
home;  imagining  a  neighbor  guilty  of  torturing  harmless 
captive  women  with  the  obscene  cruelty  of  the  Indians,  and 
yet  attributing  to  him  a  capacity  for  refined  love  !  The  Ind- 
ians would  honor  such  a  man  as  a  colleague  and  hero  ;  we 
should  send  him  to  the  penitentiary,  the  gallows,  or  the  mad- 
house. 


158  ROMANTIC    LOVE— SYMPATHY 


INDIFFERENCE   TO   SUFFERING 

It  would  be  foolish  to  retort  that  the  savage's  delight  in  the 
torture  of  others  is  manifested  only  in  the  case  of  his  enemies, 
for  that  is  not  true  ;  and  where  he  does  not  directly  exult  over 
the  sufferings  of  others,  he  still  shows  his  lack  of  sympathy 
by  his  indifference  to  those  sufferings,  often  even  in  the  case 
of  his  nearest  relatives.  The  African  explorer  Andersson 
(0.  R.,  156)  describes  the  "heart-rendering  sorrow — at  least 
outwardly,"  of  a  Damara  woman  whose  husband  had  been 
killed  by  a  rhinoceros,  and  who  wailed  in  a  most  melancholy 
way  : 

"  I  heartily  sympathized  with  her,  and  I  am  sure  I  was  the 
only  person  present  of  all  the  members  assembled  . 
who  at  all  felt  for  her  lonely  condition.  Many  a  laugh  was 
heard,  but  no  one  looked  sad.  No  one  asked  or  cared  about 
the  man,  but  each  and  all  made  anxious  inquiries  after  the 
rhinoceros — such  is  the  life  of  barbarians.  Oh,  ye  sentimen- 
talists of  the  Rousseau  school — for  some  such  still  remain — 
witness  what  I  have  witnessed,  and  do  witness  daily,  and  you 
will  soon  cease  to  envy  and  praise  the  life  of  the  savages."* 

"A  sick  person,"  writes  Gal  ton  (190),  "meets  with  no 
compassion  ;  he  is  pushed  out  of  his  hut  by  his  relations  away 
from  the  fire  into  the  cold  ;  they  do  all  they  can  to  expedite 
his  death,  and  when  he  appears  to  be  dying,  they  heap  ox- 
hides over  him  till  he  is  suffocated.  Very  few  Damaras  die  a 
natural  death." 

In  his  book  on  the  Indian  Tribes  of  Guiana  (151,  225)  the 
Rev.  W.  H.  Brett  gives  two  typical  instances  of  the  lack  of 
sympathy  in  the  New  World.  The  first  is  that  of  a  poor 
young  girl  who  was  dreadfully  burnt  by  lying  in  a  hammock 
when  it  caught  fire  :  "  She  seemed  a  very  meek  and  patient 
child,  and  her  look  of  gratitude  for  our  sympathy  was  most 
affecting.  Her  friends,  however,  took  no  trouble  about  her, 
and  she  probably  died  soon  after."  The  second  case  is  that 
of  an  Arawak  boy  who,  during  a  canoe  voyage,  was  seized  with 
cholera.  The  Indians  simply  cast  him  on  the  edge  of  the 
shore,  to  be  drowned  by  the  rising  tide. 

Going  to  the  other  end  of  the  continent  we  find  Le  Jeune 


EXPOSING   THE   SICK   AND   AGED  159 

writing  of  the  Canadian  Indians  (in  the  Jesuit  Relations, 
VI.,  245)  :  "These  people  are  very  little  moved  by  compas- 
sion. They  give  the  sick  food  and  drink,  but  otherwise 
show  no  regard  for  them."  In  the  second  volume  of  the 
Relations  (15)  the  missionary  writer  tells  of  a  sick  girl  of 
nine,  reduced  to  skin  and  bone.  He  asked  the  permission  of 
the  parents  to  baptize  her,  and  they  answered  that  he  might 
take  her  and  keep  her,  "  for  to  them  she  was  no  better  than 
a  dead  dog."  And  again  (93)  we  read  that  in  case  of  illness 
"  they  soon  abandon  those  whose  recovery  is  deemed  hope- 
less." 

Crossing  the  Continent  to  California  we  find  in  Powers 
(118)  a  pathetic  account  of  the  lack  of  filial  piety,  or  sym- 
pathy with  old  age,  which,  he  says,  is  peculiar  to  Indians  in 
general.  After  a  man  has  ceased  to  be  useful  as  a  warrior, 
though  he  may  have  been  a  hero  of  a  hundred  battles,  he  is 
compelled  to  go  with  his  sons  into  the  forest  and  bear  home 
on  his  poor  old  shoulders  the  game  they  have  killed.  He  tot- 
ters along  behind  them  "  almost  crushed  to  earth  beneath  a 
burden  which  their  unencumbered  strength  is  greatly  more 
able  to  support,  but  they  touch  it  not  with  so  much  as  one  of 
their  fingers." 

EXPOSING   THE   SICK    AND   AGED 

"  The  Gallinomeros  kill  their  aged  parents  in  a  most  cold- 
blooded manner,"  says  Bancroft  (I.,  390),  and  this  custom, 
too,  prevails  on  both  sides  of  the  Continent.  The  Canadians, 
according  to  Lalemant  (Jesuit  Relations,  IV.,  199),  "kill 
their  fathers  and  mothers  when  they  are  so  old  that  they  can 
walk  no  longer,  thinking  that  they  are  thus  doing  them  a 
good  service  ;  for  otherwise  they  would  be  compelled  to  die 
of  hunger,  as  they  have  become  unable  to  follow  others  when 
they  change  their  location."  Henry  Norman,  in  his  book  on 
the  Far  East,  explains  (553)  why  so  few  deaf,  blind,  and 
idiots  are  found  among  savages  :  they  are  destroyed  or  left  to 
perish.  Sutherland,  in  studying  the  custom  of  killing  the 
aged  and  diseased,  or  leaving  them  to  die  of  exposure,  found 
express  testimony  to  the  prevalence  of  this  loveless  habit  in 


160  ROMANTIC    LOVE— SYMPATHY 

twenty-eight  different  races  of  savages,  and  found  it  denied 
of  only  one.  Lewis  and  Clarke  give  a  list  of  Indian  tribes  by 
whom  the  aged  were  abandoned  to  starvation  (II.,  Chap.  7), 
adding  :  "  Yet  in  their  villages  we  saw  no  want  of  kindness 
to  the  aged  :  on  the  contrary,  probably  because  in  villages 
the  means  of  more  abundant  subsistence  renders  such  cruelty 
unnecessary,  old  people  appeared  to  be  treated  with  atten- 
tion." But  it  is  obvious  that  kindness  which  does  not  go.  be- 
yond the  point  where  it  interferes  with  our  own  comfort,  is  not 
true  altruism.  If  one  of  two  men  who  are  perishing  of  thirst  in 
the  desert  finds  a  cupful  of  water  and  shares  it  with  the  other, 
he  shows  sympathy ;  but  if  he  finds  a  whole  spring  and  shares  it 
with  the  companion,  his  action  does  not  deserve  that  name. 
It  would  be  superfluous  to  make  this  remark  were  it  not  that 
the  sentimentalists  are  constantly  pointing  to  such  sharing  of 
abundance  as  evidence  of  sympathetic  kindness.  There  is  a 
whole  volume  of  philosophy  in  Bates's  remark  (293)  concern- 
ing Brazilian  Indians  :  "  The  good-fellowship  of  our  Cucamas 
seemed  to  arise,  not  from  warm  sympathy,  but  simply  from 
the  absence  of  eager  selfishness  in  small  matters/'  The  Jesuit 
missionary  Le  Jeune  devotes  a  whole  chapter  (V.,  229-31) 
to  such  good  qualities  as  he  could  find  among  the  Canadian 
Indians.  He  is  just  to  the  point  of  generosity,  but  he  is 
compelled  to  end  with  these  words  :  ' '  And  yet  I  would  not 
dare  to  assert  that  I  have  seen  one  act  of  real  moral  virtue  in  a 
savage.  They  have  nothing  but  their  own  pleasure  and  satis- 
faction in  view." 

BIRTH    OF   SYMPATHY 

Schoolcraft  relates  a  story  of  an  Indian  girl  who  saved  her 
aged  father's  life  by  carrying  him  on  her  back  to  the  new 
camping-place  (Oneota,  88).  Now  Schoolcraft  is  not  a  wit- 
ness on  whom  one  can  rely  safely,  and  his  case  could  be  ac- 
cepted as  an  illustration  of  an  aboriginal  trait  only  if  it  had 
been  shown  that  the  girl  in  question  had  never  been  subject 
to  missionary  influences.  Nevertheless,  such  an  act  of  filial 
devotion  may  well  have  occurred  on  the  part  of  a  woman.  It 
was  in  a  woman's  heart  that  human  sympathy  was  first  born 


WOMEN   CRUELER   THAN   MEN  161 

— together  with  her  child.  The  helpless  infant  could  not 
have  survived  without  her  sympathetic  care,  hence  there  was 
an  important  use  for  womanly  sympathy  which  caused  it  to 
survive  and  grow,  while  man,  immersed  in  wars  and  selfish 
struggles,  remained  hard  of  heart  and  knew  not  tenderness. 

Yet  in  woman,  too,  the  growth  of  sympathy  was  painfully 
slow.  The  practice  of  infanticide,  for  selfish  reasons,  was,  as 
we  shall  see  in  later  chapters,  horribly  prevalent  among  many 
of  the  lower  races,  and  even  where  the  young  were  tenderly 
reared,  the  feeling  toward  them  was  hardly  what  we  call 
affection — a  conscious,  enduring  devotion — but  a  sort  of  ani- 
mal instinct  which  is  shared  by  tigers  and  other  fierce  and 
cruel  animals,  and  which  endures  but  a  short  time.  In 
Agassiz's  book  on  Brazil  we  read  (373),  that  the  Indians  "  are 
cold  in  their  family  affections ;  and  though  the  mothers  are 
very  fond  of  their  babies,  they  seem  comparatively  indifferent 
to  them  as  they  grow  up."  As  an  illustration  of  this  trait 
Agassiz  mentions  a  sight  he  witnessed  one  day.  A  child  who 
was  to  be  taken  far  away  to  Kio  stood  on  the  deck  crying, 
"while  the  whole  family  put  off  in  a  canoe,  talking  and 
laughing  gaily,  without  showing  him  the  least  sympathy." 


WOMEN   CRUELER    THAN   MEN 

Apart  from  instinctive  maternal  love,  sympathy  appears  to 
be  as  far  to  seek  in  the  savage  women  as  in  the  men.  Author- 
ities agree  that  in  respect  of  cruelty  the  squaws  even  surpass 
the  warriors.  Thus  Le  Jeune  attests  (Jes.  Rel.,  VI.,  245),  that 
among  the  Canadians  the  women  were  crueler  toward  captives 
than  the  men.  In  another  place  (V.,  29),  he  writes  that  when 
prisoners  were  tortured  the  women  and  girls  "  blew  and  drove 
the  flames  over  in  their  direction  to  burn  them."  In  every 
Huron  town,  says  Park  man  (Jes.  in  N.  A.,  XXXIV.),  there 
were  old  squaws  who  "  in  vindictiveness,  ferocity,  and 
cruelty,  far  exceeded  the  men."  The  same  is  asserted  of  the 
Comanche  women,  who  "delight  in  torturing  the  male 
prisoners."  Concerning  Chippewa  war  captives,  Keating 
says  (I.,  173)  :  "The  marriageable  women  are  reduced  to 


162  ROMANTIC   LOVE— SYMPATHY 

servitude  and  are  treated  with  great  cruelty  by  the  squaws/' 
Among  the  Creeks  the  women  even  used  to  pay  a  premium 
of  tobacco  for  the  privilege  of  whipping  prisoners  of  war 
(Schoolcraft,  V.,  280).  These  are  typical  instances.  In 
Patagonia,  writes  Falkner  (97),  the  Indian  women  follow 
their  husbands,  armed  with  clubs,  sometimes  and  swords,  and 
ravage  and  plunder  the  houses  of  everything  they  can  find. 
Powers  relates  that  when  California  Indians  get  too  old  to 
fight  they  have  to  assist  the  women  in  their  drudgery.  There- 
upon the  women,  instead  of  setting  them  a  good  example  by 
showing  sympathy  for  their  weakness,  take  their  revenge  and 
make  them  feel  their  humiliation  keenly.  Obviously  among 
these  savages,  cruelty  and  ferocity  have  no  sex,  wherefore  it 
would  be  as  useless  in  one  sex  as  in  the  other  to  seek  for  that 
sympathy  which  is  an  ingredient  and  a  condition  of  romantic 
love. 

PLATO  DENOUNCES  SYMPATHY 

From  a  Canadian  Indian  to  a  Greek  philosopher  it  seems  a 
far  cry  ;  yet  the  transition  is  easy  and  natural.  To  the  Ind- 
ian, as  Parkman  points  out,  "pity  was  a  cowardly  weakness," 
to  be  sternly  repressed  as  unworthy  of  a  man.  Plato,  for  his 
part,  wanted  to  banish  poetry  from  his  ideal  republic  because 
it  overwhelms  our  feelings  and  makes  us  give  way  to  sympa- 
thies which  in  real  life  our  pride  causes  us  to  repress  and 
which  are  "  deemed  the  part  of  a  woman  "  (Repub.,  X.,  665). 
As  for  the  special  form  of  sympathy  which  enters  into  the 
nobler  phases  of  the  love  between  men  and  women — fusing 
their  hearts  and  blending  their  souls— Plato's  inability  to  ap- 
preciate such  a  thing  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  in 
this  same  ideal  republic  he  wanted  to  abolish  the  marriage 
even  of  individual  bodies.  Of  the  marriage  of  souls  he,  like 
the  other  Greeks,  knew  nothing.  To  him,  as  to  his  country- 
men in  general,  love  between  man  and  woman  was  mere 
animal  passion,  far  inferior  in  nobility  and  importance  to 
love  for  boys,  or  friendship,  or  to  filial,  parental,  or  brother- 
ly love. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  sympathy,  the  difference  between 


PLATO   DENOUNCES   SYMPATHY  163 

ancient  passion  and  modern  love  is  admirably  revealed  in 
Wagner's  Tannhduser.  As  I  have  summed  it  up  else- 
where : *  "  Venus  shares  only  the  joys  of  Tannhauser,  while 
Elizabeth  is  ready  to  suffer  with  him.  Venus  is  carnal  and 
selfish,  Elizabeth  affectionate  and  self-sacrificing.  Venus  de- 
grades, Elizabeth  ennobles  ;  the  depth  of  her  love  atones  for 
the  shallow,  sinful  infatuation  of  Tannhauser.  The  aban- 
doned Venus  threatens  revenge,  the  forsaken  Elizabeth  dies  of 
grief/'  There  are  stories  of  wifely  devotion  in  Greek  litera- 
ture, but,  like  Oriental  stories  of  the  same  kind  (especially  in 
India)  they  have  a  suspicious  appearance  of  having  been  in- 
vented as  object-lessons  for  wives,  to  render  them  more  sub- 
servient to  the  selfish  wishes  of  the  husbands.  Plutarch 
counsels  a  wife  to  share  her  husband's  joys  and  sorrows, 
laugh  when  he  laughs,  weep  when  he  weeps  ;  but  he  fails 
to  suggest  the  virtue  of  reciprocal  sympathy  on  the  hus- 
band's part  ;  yet  Plutarch  had  much  higher  notions  regard- 
ing conjugal  life  than  most  of  the  Greeks.  An  approxima- 
tion to  the  modern  ideal  is  found  only  when  we  consider  the 
curious  Greek  adoration  of  boys.  Callicratides,  in  Lncian's 
"Epwres,  after  expressing  his  contempt  for  women  and  their 
ways,  contrasts  with  them  the  manners  of  a  well-bred  youth 
who  spends  his  time  associating  with  poets  and  philosophers, 
or  taking  gymnastic  and  military  exercises.  "  Who  would  not 
like,"  he  continues,  "  to  sit  opposite  such  a  boy,  hear  him 
talk,  share  his  labors,  walk  with  him,  nurse  him  in  illness, 
go  to  sea  with  him,  share  darkness  and  chains  with  him  if 
necessary  ?  Those  who  hated  him  should  be  my  enemies, 
those  who  loved  him  my  friends.  When  he  dies,  I  too  should 
wish  to  die,  and  one  grave  should  cover  us."  Yet  even  here 
there  is  no  real  sympathy,  because  there  is  no  altruism.  Cal- 
licratides does  not  say  he  will  die  for  the  other,  or  that  the 
other's  pleasures  are  to  him  more  important  than  his  own.^ 

'  Wagner  and  his  Works,  II.,  163. 

J  In  Burton  the  translator  has  changed  the  sex  of  the  beloved  This  proceed- 
ing, a  very  common  one,  has  done  much  to  confuse  the  public  regarding  the 
modernity  of  Greek  love.  It  is  not  Greek  love  of  women,  but  romantic  friend- 
ship for  boys,  that  resembles  modern  love  for  women.  . 


164  ROMANTIC   LOVE— SYMPATHY 


SHAM   ALTRUISM   IN   INDIA 

India  is  generally  credited  with  having  known  and  practised 
altruism  long  before  Christ  came  to  preach  it.  Kalidasa  an- 
ticipates a  modern  idea  when  he  remarks,  in  Sakuntala,  that 
' '  Among  persons  who  are  very  fond  of  each  other,  grief  shared 
is  grief  halved."  India,  too,  is  famed  for  its  monks  or  peni- 
tents, who  were  bidden  to  be  compassionate  to  all  living  things, 
to  treat  strangers  hospitably,  to  bless  those  that  cursed  them 
(Manu,  VI.,  48).  But  in  reality  the  penitents  were  actuated 
by  the  most  selfish  of  motives  ;  they  believed  that  by  obeying 
those  precepts  and  undergoing  various  ascetic  practices,  they 
would  get  such  power  that  even  the  gods  would  dread  them  : 
and  the  Sanscrit  dramas  are  full  of  illustrations  of  the  detest- 
ably selfish  use  they  made  of  the  power  thus  acquired.  In 
Sakuntala  we  read  how  a  poor  girFs  whole  life  was  ruined  by 
the  curse  hurled  at  her  by  one  of  these  "  saints,"  for  the  trivial 
reason  that,  being  absorbed  in  thoughts  of  love,  she  did  not 
hear  his  voice  and  attend  to  his  personal  comforts  at  once  ; 
while  Kausikcts  Rage  illustrates  the  diabolical  cruelty  with 
which  another  of  these  saints  persecutes  a  king  and  queen 
because  he  had  been  disturbed  in  his  incantations.  It  is 
possible  that  some  of  these  penitents,  living  in  the  forest  and 
having  no  other  companions,  learned  to  love  the  animals  that 
came  to  see  them  ;  but  the  much-vaunted  kindness  to  animals 
of  the  Hindoos  in  general  is  merely  a  matter  of  superstition 
and  not  an  outcome  of  sympathy.  He  has  not  even  a  fellow- 
feeling  for  suffering  human  beings.  How  far  he  was  from 
realizing  Christ's  "  blessed  are  the  merciful,"  may  be  inferred 
from  what  the  Abbe  Dubois  says  : 

"  The  feelings  of  commiseration  and  pity,  as  far  as  respects 
the  sufferings  of  others,  never  enter  into  his  heart.  He  will 
see  an  unhappy  being  perish  on  the  road,  or  even  at  his  own 
gate,  if  belonging  to  another  caste  ;  and  will  not  stir  to  help 
him  to  a  drop  of  water,  though  it  were  to  save  his  life." 

.  "  To  kill  a  cow,"  says  the  same  writer  (I.,  176),  "is  a  crime 
which  the  Hindoo  laws  punish  with  death  ;"  and  these  same 


EVOLUTION   OF   SYMPATHY  165 

Hindoos  treat  women,  especially  widows,  with  fiendish  cruelty. 
It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  a  people  who  are  so  pitiless 
to  human  beings  could  be  actuated  by  sympathy  in  their  devout 
attitude  toward  some  animals.  Superstition  is  the  spring  of 
their  actions.  In  Dahomey  any  person  who  kills  a  sacred 
(non-poisonous)  snake  is  condemned  to  be  buried  alive.  In 
Egypt  it  was  a  capital  offence  to  kill  an  ibis,  even  accidentally. 
What  we  call  lynching  seems  to  have  arisen  in  connection 
with  such  superstitions  :  "  The  enraged  multitude  did  not 
wait  for  the  slow  process  of  law,  but  put  the  offender  to  death 
with  their  own  hands."  At  the  same  time  some  animals 
"  which  were  deemed  divinities  in  one  nome,  were  treated  as 
nuisances  and  destroyed  in  others."  (Kendrick,  II.,  1-21.) 


EVOLUTION    OF   SYMPATHY 

If  we  study  the  evolution  of  human  sympathy  we  find  that 
it  begins,  not  in  reference  to  animals  but  to  human  beings. 
The  first  stage  is  a  mother's  feeling  going  out  to  her  child. 
Next,  the  family  as  a  whole  is  included,  and  then  the  tribe. 
An  Australian  kills,  as  a  matter  of  course,  everyone  he  comes 
across  in  the  wilderness  not  belonging  to  his  tribe.  To  the 
present  day  race  hatred,  jingoism,  and  religious  differences 
obstruct  the  growth  of  cosmopolitan  sympathy  such  as  Christ 
demanded.  His  religion  has  done  much,  however,  to  widen 
the  circle  of  sympathy  and  to  make  known  its  ravishing  de- 
lights. The  doctrine  that  it  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to 
receive  is  literally  true  for  those  who  are  of  a  sympathetic 
disposition.  Parents  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  their  children  as 
they  never  did  their  own  egotistic  delights.  In  various  ways 
sympathy  has  continued  to  grow,  and  at  the  present  day  the 
most  refined  and  tender  men  and  women  include  animals 
within  the  range  of  their  pity  and  affection.  We  organize 
societies  for  their  protection,  and  we  protest  against  the 
slaughter  of  birds  that  live  on  islands,  thousands  of  miles 
away.  Our  imagination  has  become  so  sensitive  and  vivid 
that  it  gives  us  a  keen  pang  to  think  of  the  happy  lives  of 
these  birds  as  being  ruthlessly  cut  short  and  their  young  left 


166  ROMANTIC   LOVE— SYMPATHY 

to  die  in  their  nests  in  the  agonies  of  cruel  starvation.  If  we 
compare  with  this  state  of  mind  that  of  the  African  of  whom 
Burton  wrote  in  his  Tivo  Trips  to  Gorilla  Land,  that 
"  Cruelty  seems  to  be  with  him  a  necessity  of  life,  and  all  his 
highest  enjoyments  are  connected  with  causing  pain  and  in- 
flicting death  " — we  need  no  other  argument  to  convince  us 
that  a  savage  cannot  possibly  feel  romantic  love,  because  that 
implies  a  capacity  for  the  tenderest  and  subtlest  sympathy. 
I  would  sooner  believe  a  tiger  capable  of  such  love  than  a  savage, 
for  the  tiger  practises  cruelty  unconsciously  and  accidentally 
while  in  quest  of  food,  whereas  the  primitive  man  indulges  in 
cruelty  for  cruelty's  sake,  and  for  the  delight  it  gives  him. 
We  have  here  one  more  illustration  of  the  change  and  growth 
of  sentiments.  Man's  emotions  develop  as  well  as  his  reason- 
ing powers,  and  one  might  as  well  expect  an  Australian,  who 
cannot  count  five,  to  solve  a  problem  in  trigonometry  as  to 
love  a  woman  as  we  love  her. 


AMOROUS   SYMPATHY 

In  romantic  love  altruism  reaches  its  climax.  Turgenieff 
did  not  exaggerate  when  he  said  that  "it  is  in  a  man  really 
in  love  as  if  his  personality  were  eliminated."  Genuine  love 
makes  a  man  shed  egoism  as  a  snake  sheds  its  skin.  His  one 
thought  is  :  "  How  can  I  make  her  happy  and  save  her  from 
grief  "  at  whatever  cost  to  his  own  comfort.  Amorous  sym- 
pathy implies  a  complete  self-surrender,  an  exchange  of  per- 
sonalities : 

My  true  lore  hath  my  heart,  and  I  have  his, 

By  just  exchange  one  for  the  other  given. — Sidney. 

It  is  the  secret  sympathy, 

The  silver  link,  the  silken  tie, 

Which  heart  to  heart,  and  mind  to  mind, 

In  body  and  in  soul  can  bind.  —  Scott. 

To  a  woman  who  wishes  to  be  loved  truly  and  permanently, 
a  sympathetic  disposition  is  as  essential  as  modesty,  and  more 
essential  than  beauty.  The  author  of  Love  Affairs  of  Some 


DEIFICATION   OF   PERSONS  167 

Famous  Men  has  wittily  remarked  that  "  Love  at  first  sight 
is  easy  enough  ;  what  a  girl  wants  is  a  man  who  can  love  her 
when  he  sees  her  every  day."  That,  he  might  have  added,  is 
impossible  unless  she  can  enter  into  another's  joys  and  sor- 
rows. Many  a  spark  of  love  kindled  at  sight  of  a  pretty  face 
and  bright  eyes  is  extinguished  after  a  short  acquaintance 
which  reveals  a  cold  and  selfish  character.  A  man  feels  in- 
stinctively that  a  girl  who  is  not  a  sympathetic  sweetheart 
will  not  be  a  sympathetic  wife  and  mother,  so  he  turns  his 
attention  elsewhere.  Selfishness  in  a  man  is  perhaps  a  degree 
less  offensive,  because  competition  and  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence necessarily  foster  it ;  yet  a  man  who  does  not  merge  his 
personality  in  that  of  his  chosen  girl  is  not  truly  in  love,  how- 
ever much  he  may  be  infatuated.  There  can  be  sympathy 
without  love,  but  no  love  without  sympathy.  It  is  an  essen- 
tial ingredient,  an  absolute  test,  of  romantic  love. 


IX.     ADORATION 

Silvius,  in  As  You  Like  It,  says  that  love  is  "  all  adora- 
tion," and  in  Twelfth  Night,  when  Olivia  asks :  "  How  does 
he  love  me?"  Viola  answers  :  "  With  adorations."  Romeo 
asks  :  "  What  shall  I  swear  by  ?  "  and  Juliet  replies  : 

Do  not  swear  at  all ; 

Or,  if  thou  wilt,  swear  by  thy  gracious  self, 
Which  is  the  god  of  my  idolatry, 
And  I'll  believe  thee. 

DEIFICATION   OF   PERSONS 

Thus  Shakspere  knew  that  love  is,  as  Emerson  defined  it, 
the  "  deification  of  persons,"  and  that  women  adore  as  well 
as  men.  Helena,  in  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  says  of  her 
love  for  Bertram  : 

Thus,  Indian-like 
Religious  in  mine  error,  I  adore 
The  sun  that  looks  upon  his  worshipper, 
But  knows  of  him  no  more. 


168  ROMANTIC   LOVE— ADORATION 

"Shakspere  shared  with  Goethe,  Petrarch,  Raphael,  Dan- 
te, Rousseau,  Jean  Paul,  .  .  .  •  a  mystical  veneration  for 
the  feminine  element  of  humanity  as  the  higher  and  more 
divine/'  (Dowden,  III.)  Within  the  last  few  centuries, 
adoration  of  femininity  has  become  a  sort  of  instinct  in  men, 
reaching  its  climax  in  romantic  love.  The  modern  lover  is 
like  a  sculptor  who  takes  an  ordinary  block  of  marble  and 
carves  a  goddess  out  of  it.  His  belief  that  his  idol  is  a  living 
goddess  is,  of  course,  an  illusion,  but  the  feeling  is  real,  how- 
ever fantastic  and  romantic  it  may  seem.  He  is  so  thoroughly 
convinced  of  the  incomparable  superiority  of  his  chosen  divin- 
ity that  "  it  is  marvellous  to  him  that  all  the  world  does  not 
want  her  too,  and  he  is  in  a  panic  when  he  thinks  of  it,"  as 
Charles  Dudley  Warner  puts  it.  Ouida  speaks  of  "  the 
graceful  hypocrisies  of  courtship,"  and  no  doubt  there  are 
many  such  ;  but  in  romantic  love  there  is  no  hypocrisy  ;  its 
devotion  and  adoration  are  absolutely  sincere. 

The  romantic  lover  adores  riot  only  the  girl  herself  but 
everything  associated  with  her.  This  phase  of  love  is  poeti- 
cally delineated  in  Goethe's  Werther  : 

"  To-day,"  Werther  writes  to  his  friend,  "  I  could  not  go  to 
see  Lotta,  being  unavoidably  detained  by  company.  What  was 
there  to  do  ?  I  sent  my  valet  to  her,  merely  in  order  to  have 
someone  about  me  who  had  been  near  her.  With  what  im- 
patience I  expected  him,  with  what  joy  I  saw  him  return  ! 
I  should  have  liked  to  seize  him  by  the  hand  and  kiss  him, 
had  I  not  been  ashamed. 

"  There  is  a  legend  of  a  Bononian  stone  which  being  placed 
in  the  sun  absorbs  his  rays  and  emits  them  at  night.  In  such 
a  light  I  saw  that  valet.  The  knowledge  that  her  eyes  had 
rested  on  his  face,  his  cheeks,  the  buttons  and  the  collar  of 
his  coat,  made  all  these  things  valuable,  sacred,  in  my  eyes. 
At  that  moment  I  would  not  have  exchanged  that  fellow  for 
a  thousand  dollars,  so  happy  was  I  in  his  presence.  God 
forbid  that  you  should  laugh  at  this.  William,  are  these 
things  phantasms  if  they  make  us  happy  ?" 

Fielding  wrote  a  poem  on  a  half-penny  which  a  young  lady 
had  given  to  a  beggar,  and  which  the  poet  redeemed  for  a  half- 
crown.  Sir  Richard  Steele  wrote  to  Miss  Scurlock  :  "  You 
must  give  me  either  a  fan,  a  mask,  or  a  glove  you  have  worn, 


PRIMITIVE   CONTEMPT   FOR   WOMEN          169 

or  I  cannot  live  ;  otherwise  you  must  expect  that  Fll  kiss 
your  hand,  or,  when  I  next  sit  by  you,  steal  your  handker- 
chief." 

Modern  literature  is  full  of  such  evidences  of  veneration  for 
the  fair  sex.  The  lover  worships  the  very  ground  she  trod 
on,  and  is  enraptured  at  the  thought  of  breathing  the  same 
atmosphere  that  surrounded  her.  To  express  his  adoration 
he  thinks  and  talks,  as  we  have  seen,  in  perpetual  hyperbole  : 

It's  a  year  almost  that  I  have  not  seen  her  ; 
Oh !  last  summer  green  things  were  greener, 
Brambles  fewer,  the  blue  sky  bluer. — C.  G.  Rossetti. 


PRIMITIVE   CONTEMPT   FOR   WOMEN 

The  adoration  of  women,  individually  or  collectively,  is, 
however,  an  entirely  modern  phenomenon,  and  is  even  now 
very  far  from  being  universal.  As  Professor  Chamberlain  has 
pointed  out  (345) :  "  Among  ourselves  woman-worship  flour- 
ishes among  the  well-to-do,  but  is  almost,  if  not  entirely, 
absent  among  the  peasantry."  Still  less  would  we  expect  to 
find  it  among  the  lower  races.  Primitive  times  were  warlike 
times,  during  which  warriors  were  more  important  than  wives, 
sons  more  useful  than  daughters.  Sons  also  were  needed  for 
ancestor  worship,  which  was  believed  to  be  essential  for  bliss 
in  a  future  life.  For  these  reasons,  and  because  women  were 
weaker  and  the  victims  of  natural  physical  disadvantages, 
they  were  despised  as  vastly  inferior  to  men,  and  while  a  son 
was  welcomed  with  joy,  the  birth  of  a  daughter  was  bewailed 
as  a  calamity,  and  in  many  countries  she  was  lucky — or  rather 
unlucky — if  she  was  allowed  to  live  at  all. 

A  whole  volume  of  the  size  of  this  one  might  be  made  up  of 
extracts  from  the  works  of  explorers  and  missionaries  describing 
the  contempt  for  women — frequently  coupled  with  maltreat- 
ment— exhibited  by  the  lower  races  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 
But  as  the  attitude  of  Africans,  Australians,  Polynesians, 
Americans,  and  others,  is  to  be  fully  described  in  future  chap- 
ters, we  can  limit  ourselves  here  to  a  few  sample  cases  taken 


170  ROMANTIC   LOVE—  ADORATION 

at  random.1  Jacques  and  Storm  relate  (Ploss,  II.,  423)  how 
one  day  in  a  Central  African  village,  the  tumor  spread  that 
a  goat  had  been  carried  off  by  a  crocodile.  Everybody  ran  to 
and  fro  in  great  excitement  until  it  was  ascertained  that  the 
victim  was  only  a  woman,,  whereupon  quiet  was  restored.  If 
an  Indian  refuses  to  quarrel  with  a  squaw  or  beat  her,  this  is 
due^  as  Chaiievoix  explains  (VI.,  44),  to  the  fact  that  he  would 
consider  that  as  unworthy  of  a  warrior,  as  she  is  too  far  be- 
neath him.  In  Tahiti  the  head  of  a  husband  or  father  was  sa- 
cred from  a  woman's  touch.  Offerings  to  the  gods  would  have 
been  polluted  if  touched  by  a  woman.  In  Siam  the  wife  had 
to  sleep  on  a  lower  pillow  than  her  husband's,  to  remind  her  of 
her  inferiority.  No  woman  was  allowed  to  enter  the  house  of 
a  Maori  chief.  Among  the  Samoyedes  and  Ostyaks  a  wife 
was  not  allowed  in  any  corner  of  the  tent  except  her  own  ; 
after  pitching  the  tent  she  was  obliged  to  fumigate  it  before 
the  men  would  enter.  The  Zulus  regard  their  women  "  with 
haughty  contempt."  Among  Mohammedans  a  woman  has  a 
definite  value  only  in  so  far  as  she  is  related  to  a  husband  ;  un- 
married she  will  always  be  despised,  and  heaven  has  no  room 
for  her.  (Ploss,  II.,  577-78.)  In  India  the  blessing  bestowed 
on  girls  by  elders  and  priests  is  the  insulting  "  Mayst  thou 
have  eight  sons,  and  may  thy  husband  survive  thee."  "  On 
every  occasion  the  poor  girl  is  made  to  feel  that  she  is  an  un- 
welcome guest  in  the  family/'  (Ramabai  Saravasti,  13.) 

"William  Jameson  Reid,  who  visited  some  of  the  unexplored 
regions  of  Northeastern  Thibet  gives  a  graphic  description  of 
the  hardness  and  misery  of  woman's  lot  among  the  Pa-Urgs  : 

"Although,  owing  to  the  scarcity,  a  woman  is  a  valuable 
commodity,  she  is  treated  with  the  utmost  contempt,  and  her 
existence  is  infinitely  worse  than  the  very  animals  of  her  lord 
and  master.  Polyandry  is  generally  practised,  increasing  the 
horror  of  her  position,  for  she  is  required  to  be  a  slave  to  a 
number  of  masters,  who  treat  her  with  the  most  rigorous  harsh- 
ness and  brutality.  From  the  day  of  her  birth  until  her  death 
(few  Pa-Urg  women  live  to  be  fifty)  her  life  is  one  protracted 
period  of  degradation.  She  is  called  upon  to  perform  the 


Taboo 


multitude  of  others  may  be  found  in  an  interesting  article  on  "Sexual 
"  by  Crawley  in  the  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute^  xxvi. 


PRIMITIVE   CONTEMPT   FOR   WOMEN         171 

most  menial  and  degrading  of  services  and  the  entire  manual 
labor  of  the  community,  it  being  considered  base  of  a  male  to 
engage  in  other  labor  than  that  of  warfare  and  the  chase.  .  .  . 
"  When  a  child  is  to  be  born  the  mother  is  driven  from  the 
village  in  which  she  lives,  and  is  compelled  to  take  up  her 
abode  in  some  roadside  hut  or  cave  in  the  open  country,  a 
scanty  supply  of  food,  furnished  by  her  husbands,  being 
brought  to  her  by  the  other  women  of  the  tribe.  When  the 
child  is  born  the  mother  remains  with  it  for  one  or  two  months, 
and  then  leaving  it  in  a  cave,  returns  to  the  village  and  in- 
forms her  eldest  husband  of  its  birth  and  the  place  wrhere  she 
has  left  it.  If  the  child  is  a  male,  some  consideration  is  shown 
to  her  ;  should  it  be  a  female,  however,  her  lot  is  frightful,  for 
aside  from  the  severe  beating  to  which  she  is  subjected  by  her 
husband,  she  suffers  the  scorn  and  contumely  of  the  rest  of 
the  tribe.  If  a  male  child,  the  husband  goes  to  the  cave  and 
brings  it  back  to  the  village ;  if  it  is  of  the  opposite  sex  he  is 
left  to  his  own  volition  ;  sometimes  he  returns  with  the  female 
infant  ;  as  often  he  ignores  it  entirely  and  allows  it  to  perish, 
or  may  dispose  of  it  to  some  other  man  as  a  prospective  wife." l 

In  Corea  women  are  so  little  esteemed  that  they  do  not  even 
receive  separate  names,  and  a  husband  considers  it  an  act  of 
condescension  to  speak  to  his  wife.  When  a  young  man  of 
the  ruling  classes  marries,  he  spends  three  or  four  days  with 
his  bride,  then  returns  to  his  concubine,  "  in  order  to  prove 
that  he  does  not  care  much  for  the  bride."  (Ploss,  II.,  434.) 
"  The  condition  of  Chinese  women  is  most  pitiable,"  writes 
the  Abbe  Hue : 

"Suffering,  privation,  contempt,  all  kinds  of  misery  and 
degradation,  seize  on  her  in  the  cradle,  and  accompany  her 
to  the  tomb.  Her  birth  is  commonly  regarded  as  a  humilia- 
tion and  a  disgrace  to  the  family — an  evident  sign  of  the 
malediction  of  heaven.  If  she  be  not  immediately  suffocated, 
a  girl  is  regarded  and  treated  as  a  creature  radically  despic- 
able, and  scarcely  belonging  to  the  human  race." 

He  adds  that  if  a  bridegroom  dies,  the  most  honorable 
course  for  the  bride  is  to  commit  suicide.  Even  the  Japanese, 
so  highly  civilized  in  some  respects,  look  down  on  women  with 
unfeigned  contempt,  likening  themselves  to  heaven  and  the 
women  to  earth.  There  are  ten  stations  on  the  way  up  the 

1  New  York  Evening  Post,  January  21,  1899. 


172  ROMANTIC   LOVE— ADORATION 

sacred  mount  Fuji.  Formerly  no  woman  was  allowed  to  climb 
above  the  eighth.  Professor  Basil  Hall  Chamberlain,  of  the 
University  of  Tokyo,  has  a  foot-note  in  his  Things  Jap- 
anese (274)  in  which  he  relates  that  in  the  introduction  to 
his  translation  of  the  Kojiki  he  had  drawn  attention  to  the 
inferior  place  held  by  women  in  ancient  as  in  modern  Japan. 
Some  years  afterward  six  of  the  chief  literati  of  the  old 
school  translated  this  introduction  into  Japanese.  They 
patted  the  author  on  the  head  for  many  things,  but  when 
they  reached  the  observation  anent  the  subjection  of  women, 
their  wrath  exploded  : 

"  The  subordination  of  women  to  men,"  so  ran  their  com- 
mentary, "is  an  extremely  correct  custom.  To  think  the 
contrary  is  to  harbor  European  prejudice.  .  .  .  For  the 
man  to  take  precedence  over  the  woman  is  the  grand  law  of 
heaven  and  earth.  To  ignore  this,  and  to  talk  of  the  con- 
trary as  barbarous,  is  absurd."" 

The  way  in  which  these  kind,  gentle,  and  pretty  women 
are  treated  by  the  men,  Chamberlain  says  on  another  page, 

"has  hitherto  been  such  as  might  cause  a  pang  to  any 
generous  European  heart.  .  .  .  At  the  present  moment 
the  greatest  duchess  or  marchioness  in  the  land  is  still  her 
husband's  drudge.  She  fetches  and  carries  for  him,  bows 
down  humbly  in  the  hall  when  my  lord  sallies  forth  on  his 
walks  abroad,  waits  upon  him  at  meals,  may  be  divorced  at 
his  good  pleasure." 

This  testimony  regarding  a  nation  which  in  some  things — 
especially  {esthetic  culture  and  general  courteousness — sur- 
passes Europe  and  America,  is  of  special  value,  as  it  shows 
that  love,  based  on  sympathy  with  women's  joys  and 
sorrows,  and  adoration  of  their  peculiar  qualities,  is  every- 
where the  last  flower  of  civilization,  and  not,  as  the  senti- 
mentalists claim,  the  first.  If  even  the  advanced  Japanese 
are  unable  to  feel  romantic  love — for  you  cannot  adore  what 
you  egotistically  look  down  on — it  is  absurd  to  look  for  it 
among  barbarians  and  savages,  such  as  the  Fuegians,  who,  in 
times  of  necessity,  eat  their  old  women,  or  the  Australians, 
among  whom  not  many  women  are  allowed  to  die  a  natural 


HOMAGE   TO    PRIESTESSES  173 

death,  "they  being  generally  despatched  ere  they  become 
old  and  emaciated,  that  so  much  good  food  may  not  be  lost."1 
There  are  some  apparent  exceptions  to  the  universal  con- 
tempt for  females  even  among  cannibals.  Thus  it  is  known 
that  the  Peruvian  Casibos  never  eat  women.  It  is  natural  to 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  this  is  due  to  respect  for  the 
female  sex.  It  is,  however,  as  Tschudi  shows,  assignable  to 
exactly  the  opposite  feeling : 

"  All  the  South  American  Indians,  who  still  remain  under 
the  influence  of  sorcery  and  empiricism,  consider  women  in 
the  light  of  impure  and  evil  beings,  and  calculated  to  injure 
them.  Among  a  few  of  the  less  rude  nations  this  aversion  is 
apparent  in  domestic  life,  in  a  certain  unconquerable  con- 
tempt of  females.  With  the  anthropophagi  the  feeling  ex- 
tends, fortunately,  to  their  flesh,  which  is  held  to  be  poison- 
ous." 

The  Caribs  had  a  different  reason  for  making  it  unlawful 
to  eat  women.  "  Those  who  were  captured,"  says  P.  Martyr, 
"  were  kept  for  breeding,  as  we  keep  fowl,  etc."  Sir  Samuel 
Baker  relates  (A.  N.,  240),  that  among  the  Latookas  it  was 
considered  a  disgrace  to  kill  a  woman — not,  however,  because 
of  any  respect  felt  for  the  sex,  but  because  of  the  scarcity  and 
money  value  of  women. 


HOMAGE   TO    PRIESTESSES 

Equally  deceptive  are  all  other  apparent  exceptions  to  the 
customary  contempt  for  women.  While  the  women  of  Fiji, 
Tonga,  and  other  islands  of  the  Pacific  were  excluded  from 
all  religious  worship,  and  Papuan  females  were  not  even  al- 
lowed to  approach  a  temple,  it  is  not  uncommon  among  the 
inferior  races  for  women  to  be  priestesses.  Bosnian  relates 
(363)  that  on  the  African  Slave  Coast  the  women  who  served 
as  priestesses  enjoyed  absolute  sway  over  their  husbands, 
who  were  in  the  habit  of  serving  them  on  their  knees.  This, 
however,  was  contrary  to  the  general  rule,  wherefore  it  is 
obvious  that  the  homage  was  not  to  the  woman  as  such,  but 

'Fitzroy,  II.,  183  ;   Trans.  Ethn.  Soc.,  New  Series,  III.,  248-88. 


174  ROMANTIC   LOVE— ADORATION 

to  the  priestess.  The  feeling  inspired  in  such  cases  is,  more- 
over, fear  rather  than  respect ;  the  priestess  among  savages 
is  a  sorceress,  usually  an  old  woman  whose  charms  have 
faded,  and  who  has  no  other  way  of  asserting  herself  than  by 
assuming  a  pretence  to  supernatural  powers  and  making  her- 
self feared  as  a  sorceress.  Hysterical  persons  are  believed  by 
savages  to  be  possessed  of  spirits,  and  as  women  are  specially 
liable  to  hysteria  and  to  hallucinations,  it  was  natural  that 
they  should  be  held  eligible  for  priestly  duties.  Consequently, 
if  there  was  any  respect  involved  here  at  all,  it  was  for  an 
infirmity,  not  for  a  virtue — a  result  of  superstition,  not  of 
appreciation  or  admiration  of  special  feminine  qualities.1 


KINSHIP  THROUGH   FEMALES   ONLY 

Dire  confusion  regarding  woman's  status  has  been  created 
in  many  minds  by  three  distinct  ethnologic  phenomena, 
which  are,  moreover,  often  confounded  :  (1)  kinship  and  he- 
redity through  females  ;  (2)  matriarchy,  or  woman's  rule  in 
the  family  (domestic)  ;  (3)  gynaicocracy,  or  woman's  rule  in 
the  tribe  (political). 

(1)  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  among  many  tribes,  espe- 
cially in  Australia,  America,  and  Africa,  children  are  named 
after  their  mother,  while  rank  and  property,  too,  are  often 
inherited  in  the  female  line  of  descent.  Lafitau  observed 
this  custom  among  American  Indians  more  than  a  century 
ago,  and  in  1861  a  Swiss  jurist,  Bachofen,  published  a  book 
in  which  he  tried  to  prove,  with  reference  to  this  "  kinship 
through  mothers  only,"  that  it  indicated  that  there  was  a 
time  when  women  everywhere  ruled  over  men.  A  study  of 
ethnologic  data  shows,  however,  that  this  inference  is  abso- 
lutely unwarranted  by  the  facts.  In  Australia,  for  instance, 
where  children  are  most  commonly  named  after  their  mother's 
clan,  there  is  no  trace  of  woman's  rule  over  man,  either  in  the 
present  or  the  past.  The  man  treats  the  woman  as  a  master 
treats  his  slaves,  and  is  complete  master  of  her  children. 

1  That  moral  infirmities,  too,  were  capable  of  winning  the  respect  of  savages, 
may  be  seen  in  Carver's  Travels  in  North  America  (245). 


KINSHIP   THROUGH   FEMALES   ONLY         175 

Cunow,  an   authority  on  Australian  relationships,  remarks 
(136)  : 

"  Nothing  could  be  more  perverse  than  to  infer  from  the 
custom  of  reasoning  kinship  through  females,  that  woman 
rules  there,  and  that  a  father  is  not  master  of  his  children. 
On  the  contrary,  the  father  regards  himself  everywhere,  even 
in  tribes  with  a  female  line  of  descent,  as  the  real  procreator. 
He  is  considered  to  be  the  one  who  plants  the  germ  and  the 
woman  as  merely  the  soil  in  which  it  grows.  And  as  the 
wife,  belongs  to  him,  so  does  the  child  that  comes  from  her 
womb.  Therefore  he  claims  also  those  children  of  his  wife 
concerning  whom  he  knows  or  assumes  that  he  did  not  beget 
them  ;  for  they  grew  on  his  soil." 

Similarly  with  the  American  Indians.  Grosse  has  devoted 
several  pages  (73-80)  to  show  that  with  the  tribes  among 
which  kinship  through  females  prevails  woman's  position  is 
not  in  the  least  better  than  with  the  others.  Everywhere 
woman  is  bought,  obliged  to  submit  to  polygamy,  compelled 
to  do  the  hardest  and  least  honorable  work,  and  often  treated 
worse  than  a  dog.  The  same  is  true  of  the  African  tribes 
among  whom  kinship  in  the  female  line  prevails. 

If,  therefore,  kinship  through  mothers  does  not  argue  fe- 
male supremacy,  how  did  that  kinship  arise  ?  Le  Jeune 
offered  a  plausible  explanation  as  long  ago  as  1632.  In  the 
Jesuit  Relations  (VI.,  255),  after  describing  the  immorality 
of  the  Indians,  he  goes  on  to  say  : 

"  As  these  people  are  well  aware  of  this  corruption,  they 
prefer  to  take  the  children  of  their  sisters  as  heirs,  rather 
than  their  own,  or  than  those  of  their  brothers,  calling  in 
question  the  fidelity  of  their  wives,  and  being  unable  to  doubt 
that  these  nephews  come  from  their  own  blood.  Also  among 
the  Hurons — who  are  more  licentious  than  onr  Montagnais, 
because  they  are  better  fed — it  is  not  the  child  of  a  captain 
but  his  sister's  son,  who  succeeds  the  father." 

The  same  explanation  has  been  advanced  by  other  writers 
and  by  the  natives  of  other  countries  where  kinship  through 
females  prevails  ; 1  and  it  doubtless  holds  true  in  many  cases. 

1  Garcia :  Origin  de  los  Indios  de  el  Nuevo  Mbndo ;  McLennan  ;  Ingham 
(Westermarck,  113)  concerning  the  Bakongo;  Giraud-Teulon,  208,  209,  con- 
cerning Nubians  and  other  Ethiopians. 


176  ROMANTIC   LOVE— ADORATION 

In  others  the  custom  of  naming  children  after  their  mothers 
is  probably  simply  a  result  of  the  fact  that  a  child  is  al- 
ways more  closely  associated  with  the  mother  than  with  the 
father.  She  brings  it  into  the  world,  suckles  it,  and  watches 
over  it ;  in  the  primitive  times,  even  if  promiscuity  was 
not  prevalent,  marriages  were  of  short  duration  and  divorces 
frequent,  wherefore  the  male  parentage  would  be  so  con- 
stantly in  doubt  that  the  only  feasible  thing  was  to  name  the 
children  after  their  mothers.  For  our  purposes,  fortunately, 
this  knotty  problem  of  the  origin  of  kinship  through  females, 
which  has  given  sociologists  so  much  trouble,1  does  not  need 
to  be  solved.  We  are  concerned  solely  with  the  question, 
"  Does  kinship  in  the  female  line  indicate  the  supremacy  of 
women,  or  their  respectful  treatment  ? "  and  that  question, 
as  we  have  seen,  must  be  answered  with  a  most  emphatic 
No.  There  is  not  a  single  fact  to  bear  out  the  theory  that 
man's  rule  was  ever  preceded  by  a  period  when  woman  ruled. 
The  lower  we  descend,  the  more  absolute  and  cruelly  selfish 
do  we  find  man's  rule  over  woman.  The  stronger  sex  every- 
where reduces  the  weaker  to  practical  slavery  and  holds  it  in 
contempt.  Primitive  woman  has  not  yet  developed  these 
qualities  in  which  her  peculiar  strength  lies,  and  if  she  had, 
the  men  would  be  too  coarse  to  appreciate  them. 

WOMAN'S   DOMESTIC   RULE 

(2)  As  we  ascend  in  the  scale  we  find  a  few  cases  where 
women  rule  or  at  least  share  the  rule  with  the  men  ;  but  these 
occur  not  among  savages  but  with  the  lower  and  higher  bar- 
barians, and  at  the  same  time  they  are,  as  Grosse  remarks  (161), 
' '  among  the  scarcest  curiosities  of  ethnology. "  The  Garos  of 
Assam  have  women  at  the  head  of  their  clans.  Dyak  women 
.are  consulted  in  political  matters  and  have  equal  rights  with 
the  men.  Macassar  women  in  Celebes  also  are  consulted  as 
regards  public  affairs,  and  frequently  ascend  the  throne.  A 
few  similar  cases  have  been  noted  in  Africa,  where,  e.g.,  the 

!See  Letourneau,   332-400;    Westermarck,   39-41,   96-113;    Grosse,    11-12, 
50-63,  75-78,  161-163,  167,  180. 


WOMAN'S   POLITICAL   RULE  177 

princesses  of  the  Ashantees  domineer  over  their  husbands  ; 
but  these  apply  only  to  the  ruling  class,  and  do  not  concern 
the  sex  as  a  whole.  Some  strange  tales  of  masculine  submis- 
sion in  Nicaragua  are  told  by  Herrera.  But  the  best-known 
instance  is  that  of  the  Iroquois  and  Hurons.  Their  women, 
as  Lafitau  relates  (I.,  71),  owned  the  land  and  the  crops,  they 
decided  upon  peace  or  war,  took  charge  of  slaves,  and  made 
marriages.  The  Huron  Wyandots  had  a  political  council 
consisting  of  four  women.  The  Iroquois  Seneca  women  could 
chase  lazy  husbands  from  the  premises,  and  could  even  de- 
pose a  chief.  Yet  these  cases  are  not  conclusive  as  to  the  real 
status  of  the  women  in  the  tribe.  The  facts  cited  are,  as  John 
Fiske  remarks  (Disc.  Amer.,  I.,  68),  "not  incompatible  with 
the  subjection  of  women  to  extreme  drudgery  and  ill-treat- 
ment/' Oharlevoix,  one  of  the  eye-witnesses  to  these  excep- 
tional privileges  granted  to  some  Indian  women,  declares  ex- 
pressly that  their  domination  was  illusory  ;  that  they  were, 
at  home,  the  slaves  of  their  husbands  ;  that  the  men  despised 
them  thoroughly,  and  that  the  epithet  "woman  "  was  an  in- 
sult.1 And  Morgan,  who  made  such  a  thorough  study  of  the 
Iroquois,  declares  (322)  that  "  the  Indian  regarded  woman 
as  the  inferior,  the  dependent,  and  the  servant  of  man,  and, 
from  nature  and  habit,  she  actually  considered  herself  to  be 
so."  The  two  honorable  employments  among  Indians  were 
war  and  hunting,  and  these  were  reserved  for  the  men. 
Other  employments  were  considered  degrading  and  were 
therefore  gallantly  reserved  for  the  women. 


POLITICAL   KULE 

Comanche  Indians,  who  treated  their  squaws  with  especial 
contempt,  nevertheless  would  not  hesitate  on  occasion  to  sub- 
mit to  the  rule  of  a  female  chief  (Bancroft,  I.,  509) ;  and  the 
same  is  true  of  other  tribes  in  America,  Africa,  etc.  (Grosse, 
163).  In  this  respect,  barbarians  do  not  differ  from  civilized 
races  ;  queenship  is  a  question  of  blood  or  family  and  tells  us 

Oharlevoix,  V.,  r>97-4'24  ;  Letournean,  351.  See  also  Mackenzie,  V.  fr.  J£, 
84,  87;  Smith,  Arctic.,  238  ;  Bur.  Ethnol.,  1887,  468-70. 


178  ROMANTIC    LOVE— ADORATION 

nothing  whatever  about  the  status  of  women  in  general.  As 
regards  the  "equal  rights"  of  the  Dyak  women  just  referred 
to,  if  they  really  have  them,  it  is  not  as  women,  but  as  men, 
that  is,  in  so  far  as  they  have  become  like  men.  This  we  see 
from  what  Schwaner  says  (I.,  161)  of  the  tribes  in  the  South- 
east :  "  The  women  are  allowed  great  privileges  and  liberties. 
Not  infrequently  they  rule  at  home  and  over  whole  tribes  with 
manly  power,  incite  to  war,  and  often  personally  lead  the 
men  to  battle."  Honors  paid  to  such  viragoes  are  honors  to 
masculinity,  not  to  femininity. 


GREEK   ESTIMATE   OF   WOMEN" 

Here  again  the  transition  from  the  barbarian  to  the  Greek 
is  easy  and  natural.  The  ancient  Greek  looked  down  on 
women  as  women.  "  One  man,"  exclaims  Iphigenia  in  Eu- 
ripides, "is  worth  more  than  ten  thousand  women."  There 
were,  of  course,  certain  virtues  that  were  esteemed  in  women, 
but  these,  as  Becker  has  said,  differed  but  little  from  those 
required  of  an  obedient  slave.  It  is  only  in  so  far  as  women 
displayed  masculine  qualities  that  they  were  held  worthy  of 
higher  honor.  The  heroines  of  Plutarch's  essay  on  "  The 
Virtues  of  Women  "  are  women  who  are  praised  for  patriotic, 
soldier-like  qualities,  and  actions.  Plato  believed  that  men 
who  were  bad  in  this  life  would,  on  their  next  birth,  be 
women.  The  elevation  of  women,  he  held,  could  be  best  ac- 
complished by  bringing  them  up  to  be  like  men.  But  this 
matter  will  be  discussed  more  fully  in  the  chapter  on  Greece, 
as  will  that  of  the  adulation  which  was  paid  to  wanton 
women  by  Greek  and  Roman  poets,  and  which  has  been  often 
mistaken  for  adoration.  George  Eliot  speaks  of  "  that  ado- 
ration which  a  young  man  gives  to  a  woman  whom  he  feels  to 
be  greater  and  better  than  himself."  No  Greek  ever  felt  a 
woman  to  be  "greater  and  better  than  himself,"  wherefore 
true  adoration — the  deification  of  persons — was  out  of  the 
question.  But  there  was  no  reason  why  a  Greek  or  Roman 
should  not  have  indulged  in  servile  flattery  and  hypocritical 
praise  for  the  selfish  purpose  of  securing  the  carnal  favors 


MAN-WORSHIP   AND    CHRISTIANITY  179 

of  a  mercenarily  coy  courtesan.  He  was  capable  of  adulation 
but  not  of  adoration,  for  one  cannot  adore  a  slave,  a  drudge 
or  a  wanton.  The  author  of  the  Lover's  Lexicon  claims,  in- 
deed, that  "  love  can  and  does  exist  without  respect,"  but  that 
is  false.  Infatuation  of  the  senses  may  exist  without  respect, 
but  refined,  sentimental  love  is  blighted  by  the  discovery  of 
impurity  or  vulgarity.  Adoration  is  essential  to  true  love, 
and  adoration  includes  respect. 


MAN-WORSHIP   AND   CHRISTIANITY 

If  we  must,  therefore,  conclude  that  man  in  primitive  and 
ancient  times  was  unable  to  feel  that  love  of  which  adoration 
is  an  essential  ingredient,  how  is  it  with  women  ?  From  the 
earliest  times,  have  they  not  been  taught,  with  club  and  other- 
wise, to  look  up  to  man  as  a  superior  being,  and  did  not  this 
enable  them  to  adore  him  with  true  love  ?  No,  for  primitive 
women,  though  they  might  fear  or  admire  man  for  his  superior 
power,  were  too  coarse,  obscene,  ignorant,  and  degraded — being 
as  a  rule  even  lower  than  the  men — to  be  able  to  share  even  a 
single  ingredient  of  the  refined  love  that  we  experience.  At 
the  same  time  it  may  be  said  (though  it  sounds  sarcastic)  that 
woman  had  a  natural  advantage  over  man  in  being  gradually 
trained  to  an  attitude  of  devotion.  Just  as  the  care  of  her  in- 
fants taught  her  sympathy,  so  the  daily  inculcated  duty  of  sac- 
rificing herself  for  her  lord  and  master  fostered  the  germs  of 
adoration.  Consequently  we  find  at  more  advanced  stages  of 
civilization,  like  those  represented  by  India,  Greece,  and 
Japan,  that  whenever  we  come  across  a  story  whose  spirit 
approaches  the  modern  idea  of  love,  the  embodiment  of  that 
love  is  nearly  always  a  woman.  Woman  had  been  taught  to 
worship  man  while  he  still  wallowed  in  the  mire  of  masculine 
selfishness  and  despised  her  as  an  inferior.  And  to  the  pres- 
ent day,  though  it  is  not  considered  decorous  for  young  women 
to  reveal  their  feelings  till  after  marriage  or  engagement,  they 
adore  their  chosen  ones  : 

For  love's  insinuating  fire  they  fan 
With  sweet  ideas  of  a  god  like  man. 


180  ROMANTIC    LOVE— GALLANTRY 

In  this  respect,  as  in  so  many  others,  woman  has  led  civil- 
ization. Man,  too,  gradually  learned  to  doff  his  selfishness, 
and  to  respect  and  adore  women,  but  it  took  many  centuries 
to  accomplish  the  change,  which  was  due  largely  to  the  influ- 
ence of  Christ's  teachings.  As  long  as  the  aggressive  mascu- 
line virtues  alone  were  respected,  feminine  gentleness  and  pity 
could  not  but  be  despised  as  virtues  of  a  lower  grade,  if  virt- 
ues at  all.  But  as  war  became  less  and  less  the  sole  or  chief 
occupation  of  the  best  men,  the  feminine  virtues,  and  those 
who  exercised  them,  claimed  and  received  a  larger  share  of 
respect. 

Christianity  emphasized  and  honored  the  feminine  virtues 
of  patience,  meekness,  humility,  compassion,  gentleness,  and 
thus  helped  to  place  women  on  a  level  with  man,  and  in 
the  noblest  of  moral  qualities  even  above  him.  Mariol- 
atry,  too,  exerted  a  great  influence.  The  worship  of  one 
immaculate  woman  gradually  taught  men  to  respect  and 
adore  other  women,  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  it  was  the  lover 
who  found  it  easiest  to  get  down  on  his  knees  before  the  girl 
he  worshipped. 


X.     UNSELFISH  GALLANTRY. 

One  day  while  lunching  at  an  African  fondak,  half  way  be- 
tween Tangier  and  Tetuan,  I  was  led  to  moralize  on  the  con- 
jugal superiority  of  Mohammedan  roosters  to  Mohammedan 
men.  Noticing  a  fine  large  cock  in  the  yard,  I  threw  him  a 
handful  of  bread-crumbs.  He  was  all  alone  at  the  moment  and 
might  have  easily  gobbled  them  all  up.  Instead  of  doing  such 
a  selfish  thing,  he  loudly  summoned  his  harem  with  that 
peculiar  clucking  sound  which  is  as  unmistakable  to  fowls  as 
is  the  word  dinner  or  the  boom  of  a  gong  to  us.  In  a  few 
seconds  the  hens  had  gathered  and  disposed  of  the  bread, 
leaving  not  a  crumb  to  their  gallant  lord  and  master.  I 
need  not  add  that  the  Sultan  of  a  human  harem  in  Morocco 
would  have  behaved  very  differently  under  analogous  circum- 
stances. 


UNGALLANT    LOWER   RACES   OF   MEN        181 


THE   GALLANT   BOOSTER 

The  dictionary  makers  derive  the  word  gallant  from  all 
sorts  of  roots  in  divers  languages,  meaning  gay,  brave,  fes- 
tive, proud,  lascivious,  and  so  on.  Why  not  derive  if  from 
the  Latin  gall  us,  rooster?  A  rooster  combines  in  himself  all 
the  different  meanings  of  the  word  gallant.  He  is  showy  in 
appearance,  brave,  daring,  attentive  to  females,  and,  above 
all,  chivalrous,  that  is,  inclined  to  show  disinterested  cour- 
tesy to  the  weaker  sex,  as  we  have  just  seen.  In  this  last  re- 
spect, it  is  true,  the  rooster  stands  not  alone.  It  is  a  trait  of 
male  animals  in  general  to  treat  their  females  unselfishly  in 
regard  to  feeding  and  otherwise. 

UNGALLANT   LOWER   RACES   OF   MEN 

If  we  now  turn, to  human  beings,  we  have  to  ascend  many 
strata  of  civilization  before  we  come  across  anything  resem- 
bling the  unselfish  gallantry  of  the  rooster.  The  Australian 
savage,  when  he  has  speared  a  kangaroo,  makes  his  wife  cook 
it,  then  selects  the  juiciest  cuts  for  himself  and  the  other 
men,  leaving  the  bones  to  the  women  and  dogs. 

Ascending  to  the  much  higher  Polynesians  and  American 
Indians  we  still  find  that  the  women  have  to  content  them- 
selves with  what  the  men  leave.  A  Hawaiian  even  considers 
it  a  disgrace  to  eat  at  the  same  place  as  his  wife,  or  with  the 
same  utensils. 

What  Rowney  says  (173)  of  the  Nagas  of  India — "  she  does 
everything  the  husband  will  not,  and  he  considers  it  effeminate 
to  do  anything  but  fight,  hunt,  and  fish  " — is  true  of  the 
lower  races  in  general.  An  African  Kaffir,  says  Wood  (73), 
would  consider  it  beneath  his  dignity  to  as  much  as  lift  a 
basket  of  rice  on  the  head  of  even  his  favorite  wife ;  he  sits 
calmly  on  the  ground  and  allows  some  woman  to  help  his 
busy  wife.  "  One  of  my  friends,"  he  continues, 

"  when  rather  new  to  Kaffirland,  happened  to  look  into  a 
hut  and  there  saw  a  stalwart  Kaffir  sitting  and  smoking  his 
pipe,  while  the  women  were  hard  at  work  in  the  sun,  build- 


182  ROMANTIC    LOVE— GALLANTRY 

ing  huts,  carrying  timber,  and  performing  all  kinds  of  severe 
labor.  Struck  with  a  natural  indignation  at  such  behavior, 
he  told  the  smoker  to  get  up  and  work  like  a  man.  This  idea 
was  too  much  even  for  the  native  politeness  of  the  Kaffir,  who 
burst  into  a  laugh  at  so  absurd  a  notion.  '  AVomen  work/ 
said  he,  '  men  sit  in  the  house  and  smoke/* 

MacDonald  relates  (in  Africana,  I.,  35)  that  "a  woman 
always  kneels  when  she  has  occasion  to  talk  to  a  man."  Even 
queens  must  in  some  cases  go  on  their  knees  before  their 
husbands.  (Ratzel,  I.,  254.)  Caille  gives  similar  testimony 
regarding  the  Waissulo,  and  Mungo  Park  (347)  describes  the 
return  of  one  of  his  companions  to  the  capital  of  Dentila, 
after  an  absence  of  three  years  : 

"  As  soon  as  he  had  seated  himself  upon  a  mat,  by  the 
threshold  of  his  door,  a  young  woman  (his  intended  bride) 
brought  a  little  water  in  a  calabash,  and  kneeling  down  be- 
fore him,  desired  him  to  wash  his  hands  ;  when  he  had  done 
this,  the  girl,  with  a  tear  of  joy  sparkling  in  her  eyes,  drank 
the  water  ;  this  being  considered  as  the  greatest  proof  she 
could  possibly  give  him  of  her  fidelity  and  attachment." 

An  Eskimo,  when  building  a  house,  looks  on  lazily  while 
his  women  carry  stones  "  almost  heavy  enough  to  break  their 
backs."  The  ungallant  men  not  only  compel  the  women  to 
be  their  drudges,  but  slyly  create  a  sentiment  that  it  is 
disgraceful  for  a  man  to  assist  them.  Of  the  Patagonian 
Indians  Falkner  asserts  that  the  women  are  so  rigidly 
"  obliged  to  perform  their  duty,  that  their  husbands  cannot 
help  them  on  any  occasion,  or  in  the  greatest  distress,  with- 
out incurring  the  highest  ignominy,"  and  this  is  the  general 
feeling,  of  which  other  illustrations  will  be  given  in  later 
chapters.  Foolish  sentimentalists  have  tried  to  excuse  the 
Indians  on  the  ground  that  they  have  no  time  to  attend  to 
anything  but  fighting  and  hunting.  But  they  always  make 
the  squaws  do  the  hard  work,  whether  there  be  any  war  and 
hunting  or  not.  A  white  American  girl,  accustomed  to  the 
gallant  attentions  of  her  lover,  would  not  smile  on  the  red 
Dacota  suitor  of  whom  Riggs  writes  (205) : 

"  When  the  family  are  abed  and  asleep,  he  often  visits  her 
in  her  mother's  tent,  or  he  finds  her  out  in  the  grove  in  the 


UNGALLANT    LOWER    RACES    OF    MEN        183 

day  time  gathering  fuel.  She  has  the  load  of  sticks  made  up, 
and  when  she  kneels  down  to  take  it  on  her  back,  possibly  he 
takes  her  hand  and  helps  her  up  and  then  walks  home  by  her 
side.  Such  was  the  custom  in  the  olden  time." 

Still,  there  is  a  germ  of  gallantry  here.  The  Dacota  at 
least  helps  to  load  his  human  donkey,  while  the  Kaffir  re- 
fuses to  do  even  that. 

Colonel  James  Smith,  who  had  been  adopted  by  the  Ind- 
ians, relates  (45)  how  one  day  he  helped  the  squaws  to  hoe 
corn.  They  approved  of  it,  but  the  old  men  afterward  chid 
him  for  degrading  himself  by  hoeing  corn  like  a  squaw.  He 
slyly  adds  that,  as  he  was  never  very  fond  of  work,  they  had 
no  occasion  to  scold  him  again.  We  read  in  Schoolcraft 
(V.,  268)  that  among  the  Creeks,  during  courtship,  the  young 
man  used  to  help  the  girl  hoe  the  corn  in  her  field,  plant  her 
beans  and  set  poles  for  them  to  run  upon.  But  this  was  not 
intended  as  an  :am  of  gallant  assistance ;  it  had  a  symbolic 
meaning.  The  Wnning  up  of  the  beans  on  the  poles  and  the 
entwining  of  their  vines  was  "  thought  emblematical  of  their 
approaching  union  and  bondage/'  Morgan  states  expressly 
in  his  classical  work  on  the  Iroquois  (332)  that  "  no  attempts 
by  the  unmarried  to  please  or  gratify  each  other  by  acts  of 
personal  attention  were  ever  made."  In  other  words  the  Ind- 
ians knew  not  gallantry  in  the  sense  of  disinterested  courtesy 
to  the  weaker  sex — the  gallantry  which  is  an  essential  ingre- 
dient of  romantic  love. 

Germs  of  gallantry  may  perhaps  be  found  in  Borneo  where, 
as  St.  John  relates  (I.,  161),  a  young  Dyak  may  help  the  girl 
he  wants  to  marry  in  her  farm  work,  carrying  home  her  load 
of  vegetables  or  wood,  or  make  her  presents  of  rings,  a  petti- 
coat, etc.  But  such  a  statement  must  be  interpreted  with 
caution. 

The  very  fact  that  they  make  the  women  do  the  field  work 
and  carry  the  wood  habitually,  shows  that  the  Dyaks  are 
not  gallant.  Momentary  favors  for  the  sake  of  securing 
favors  in  return,  or  of  arranging  an  ephemeral  Bornean 
"  marriage,"  are  not  acts  of  disinterested  courtesy  to  the 
weaker  sex.  The  Dyaks  themselves  clearly  understand  that 


184  ROMANTIC    LOVE— GALLANTRY 

such  attentions  are  mere  bids  for  favors.     As  a  missionary 
cited  by  Ling  Roth  (I.,  131)  remarks  : 

"  If  a  woman  handed  to  a  man  betel -nut  and  sirah  to  eat, 
or  if  a  man  paid  her  the  smallest  attention,  such  as  we  should 
term  only  common  politeness,  it  would  be  sufficient  to  excuse 
a  jealous  husband  for  striking  a  man." 

It  is  the  same  in  India.  "  The  politeness,  attention,  and 
gallantry  which  the  Europeans  practise  toward  the  ladies, 
although  often  proceeding  from  esteem  and  respect,  are  in- 
variably ascribed  by  the  Hindoos  to  a  different  motive."  (Du- 
bois,  I.,  271.)  Here,  as  everywhere  in  former  times,  woman 
existed  not  for  her  own  sake  but  for  man's  convenience, 
comfort,  and  pleasure  ;  why,  therefore,  should  he  bother  to 
do  anything  to  please  her  ?  In  the  Kamasoutram  there 
is  a  chapter  on  the  duties  of  a  model  wife,  in  which  she  is  in- 
structed to  do  all  the  work  not  only  at  home  but  in  garden, 
field,  and  stable.  She  must  go  to  bud  after  her  husband  and 
get  up  before  him.  She  must  try  to  excel  air  other  wives  in 
faithfully  serving  her  lord  and  master.  She  must  not  even 
allow  the  maid-servant  to  wash  his  feet,  but  must  do  it  with 
her  own  hands.  The  Laws  of  Manu  are  full  of  such  precepts, 
most  of  them  amazingly  ungallant.  The  horrible  maltreat- 
ment of  women  in  India,  which  it  would  be  an  unpardonable 
euphuism  to  call  simply  ungallant,  will  be  dwelt  on  in  a  later 
chapter. 

It  has  been  said  a  thousand  times  that  the  best  measure  of 
a  nation's  civilization  is  its  treatment  of  women.  It  would  be 
more  accurate  to  say  that  kind,  courteous  treatment  of  women 
is  the  last  and  highest  product  of  civilization.  The  Greeks 
and  Hindoos  had  reached  a  high  level  of  culture  in  many  re- 
spects, yet,  judged  by  their  treatment  of  women,  the  Greeks 
were  barbarians  and  the  Hindoos  incarnate  fiends.  Scholars 
are  sometimes  surprisingly  reckless  in  their  assumptions. 
Thus  Hommel  (I.,  417)  declares  that  woman  must  have  held 
an  honored  position  in  Babylonia,1  because  in  the  ancient  texts 

1  How  capable  of  honoring  women  the  Babylonians  were  may  be  inferred 
from  the  testimony  of  Heiodotns  (I.,  ch.  199)  that  every  woman  had  to  sacrifice 
her  chastity  to  strangers  in  the  temple  of  Mylitta. 


EGYPTIAN   LOVE  185 

that  have  come  down  to  us  the  words  mother  and  wife  always 
precede  the  words  father  and  husband.  Yet,  as  Dubois  men- 
tions incidentally,  the  Brahmin  texts  also  place  the  feminine 
word  before  the  masculine,  and  the  Brahmins  treat  women 
more  cruelly  than  the  lowest  savages  treat  them. 


EGYPTIAN   LOVE 

I  have  not  been  able  to  find  evidence  of  a  gallant,  chival- 
rous, magnanimous  attitude  toward  women  in  the  records 
of  any  ancient  nation,  and  as  romantic  love  is  inconceivable 
without  such  an  attitude,  and  a  constant  interchange  of 
kindnesses,  we  may  infer  from  this  alone  that  these  nations 
were  strangers  to  such  love.  Professor  Ebers  makes  a  spe- 
cial plea  for  thejjjgyptiiins.  Noting  the  statements  of  He- 
rodotus and  ])io(Wlfc4  regarding  the  greater  degree  of  liber- 
ty enjoyed  by  £lidH^omeii  as  compared  with  the  Greek,  he 
bases  thereon  thjmiereiice  that  in  their  treatment  of  women 
the  Egyptians  were  superior  to.  all  other  nations  of  antiquity. 
Perhaps  they  were;  it  is  not  claiming  much.  But  Professor 
Kendrick  notes  (I.,  46)  that  although  it  may  be  true  that 
the  Egyptian  women  went  to  market  and  carried  on  trades 
while  the  men  remained  at  home  working  at  the  loom,  this 
is  capable  of  receiving  quite  a  different  interpretation  from 
that  given  by  Ebers.  The  Egyptians  regarded  work  at  the 
loom  more  as  a  matter  of  skill  than  the  Greeks  did  ;  and 
if  they  allowed  the  women  to  do  the  marketing,  that  may 
have  been  because  they  preferred  to  have  them  carry  the 
heavy  burdens  and  do  the  harder  work,  after  the  fashion  of 
savages  and  barbarians. 

If  the  Egyptians  ever  did  show  any  respect  for  women 
they  have  carefully  wiped  out  all  traces  of  it  in  modern  life. 
To-day,  "  among  the  lower  classes  and  in  rural  districts  the 
wife  is  her  husband's  servant.  She  works  while  he  smokes 
and  gossips.  But  among  the  higher  classes,  too,  the  woman 
actually  stands  far  below  the  man.  He  never  chats  with  her, 
never  communicates  to  her  his  affairs  and  cares.  Even  after 
death  she  does  not  rest  by  his  side,  but  is  separated  from  him 


186  ROMANTIC    LOVE— GALLANTRY 

by  a  wall."  (Ploss,  II.,  450.)  Polygamy  prevails,  as  in  ancient 
times,  and  polygamy  everywhere  indicates  a  low  position  of 
woman.  Ebers  comments  on  the  circumspection  shown  by 
the  ancient  Egyptians  in  drawing  up  their  marriage  contracts, 
adding  that  "  in  many  cases  there  were  even  trial  marriages" 
— a  most  amazing  "even"  in  view  of  what  he  is  trying  to 
prove.  A  modern  lover,  as  I  have  said  before,  would  reject 
the  very  idea  of  such  a  trial  marriage  with  the  utmost  scorn 
and  indignation,  because  he  feels  certain  that  his  love  is 
eternal  and  unalterable.  Time  may  show  that  he  was  mis- 
taken, but  that  does  not  affect  his  present  feeling.  That 
sublime  confidence  in  the  eternity  of  his  passion  is  one 
of  the  hall-marks  of  romantic  love.  The  Egyptian  had  it 
not.  He  not  only  sanctioned  degrading  trial  marriages,  but 
enacted  a  barbarous  law; -which  enablecLajo^n,  to  divorce  any 
wife  at  pleasure  by  simply  pronouncing^^  Birds  "'thou  art 
expelled."  In  modern  Egypt,  says  LJo^^Bf^ 7-51),*" there 
are  many  men  who  have  had  twenty,  th^jpjr  more  wives, 
and  women  who  have  had  a  dozen  or  more  husbands.  Some 
talie  a  new  wife  every  month.  Thus  the  Egyptians  are 
matrimonially  on  a  level  with  the  savage  and  barbarian  North 
American  Indians,  Tasmanians,  Samoans,  Dyaks,  Malayans, 
Tartars,  many  negro  tribes,  Arabs,  etc. 


AEABIAN   LOVE 

Arabia  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  the  country  in  which 
chivalry  originated.  This  belief  seems  to  rest  on  the  fact 
that  the  Arabs  spared  women  in  war.  But  the  Australians 
did  the  same,  and  where  women  are  saved  only  to  be  used  as 
slaves  or  concubines  we  cannot  speak  of  chivalry.  The  Arabs 
treated  their  own  women  well  only  when  they  were  able  to 
capture  or  buy  slaves  to  do  the  hard  work  for  them  ;  in  other 
cases  their  wives  were  their  slaves.  To  this  day,  when  the 
family  moves,  the  husband  rides  on  the  camel  while  the  wife 
trudges  along  on  foot,  loaded  down  with  kitchen  utensils,  bed- 
ding, and  her  child  on  top.  If  a  woman  happens  to  ride  on  a 
camel  she  must  get  off  and  walk  if  she  meets  a  man,  by  way 


ARABIAN   LOVE  187 

of  showing  her  respect  for  the  superior  sex.  (Niebuhr,  50.) 
The  birth  of  a  daughter  is  regarded  as  a  calamity,  mitigated 
only  by  the  fact  that  she  will  bring  in  some  money  as  a  bride. 
Marriage  is  often  little  more  than  a  farce.  Burckhardt  knew 
Bedouins  who,  before  they  were  1ifty  years  old,  had  been 
married  to  more  than  fifty  different  women.  Chavanne,  in 
his  book  on  the  Sahara  (397-401),  gives  a  pathetic  picture  of 
the  fate  of  the  Arab  girls  :  "  Usually  wedded  very  young  (the 
marriage  of  a  youth  of  fourteen  to  a  girl  of  eleven  is  nothing 
unusual),  the  girl  finds  in  most  cases,  after  five  or  six  years, 
that  her  conjugal  career  is  at  an  end.  The  husband  tires  of 
her  and  sends  her  back,  without  cogent  reasons,  to  her  parents. 
If  there  are  no  parents  to  return  to,  she  abandons  herself,  in 
many  cases,  tg  thanv^e  °^  prostitution."  If  not  discarded, 
her  fate  is  no/.  Kr-jj-f  ;JeBS  deplorably-  "While  young  she  re- 
ceives mucrhfc  jlfc  \Vy"^ut  wlien  her  charms  begin  to  fade 
she  b^me^yP^y^ant  of  her  husband  and  of  his  new 

'' 


Chavanne  gi\«»  «r  glowing  description  of  the  ravishing  but 
short-lived  beauty  of  the  Arab  girl  ;  also  a  specimen  of  the 
amorous  songs  addressed  to  her  wnile  she  is  young  and  pretty. 
She  is  compared  to  a  gazelle  ;  to  a  palm  whose  fruits  grow 
high  up  out  of  reach  ;  she  is  equal  in  value  to  all  Tunis  and 
Algiers,  to  all  the  ships  on  the  ocean,  to  five  hundred  steeds 
and  as  many  camels.  Her  throat  is  like  a  peach,  her  eyes 
wound  like  arrows.  Exaggerations  like  these  abound  in  the 
literature  of  the  Arabs,  and  are  often  referred  to  as  proof* 
that  they  love  as  we  do.  In  truth,  they  indicate  nothing 
beyond  selfish,  amorous  desires.  The  proof  of  unselfish. 
affection  lies  not  in  words,  however  glowing  and  flattering, 
but  in  kind  actions  ;  and  the  actions  of  the  Ar^s  to- 
ward their  women  are  disgustingly  selfish,  ex.cept  during 
the  few  years  that  they  are  young  and  pretty  enough  to 
serve  as  toys.  The  Arabs,  with  all  their  fine  talk,  are 
practically  on  a  level  with  the  Samoyedes  who,  as  we  saw, 
ignore  or  maltreat  their  wives,  "except  on  an  occasional 
amorous  evening  "  ;  on  a  level  with  the  Sioux  Indian,  of 
whom  Mrs.  Eastman  remarks  that  a  girl  is  to  him  an  ob- 


188  ROMANTIC    LOVE— GALLANTRY 

ject  of  contempt  and  neglect  from  her  birth  to  her  grave, 
except  during  the  brief  period  when  he  wants  her  for  his  wife 
and  may  have  a  doubt  of  his  success. 


THE    UNCHIVALROUS   GREEKS 

A  few  pages  back  I  cited  the  testimony  of  Morgan,  who 
lived  many  years  among  the  Indians  and  studied  them  with 
the  intelligence  of  an  expert  ethnologist,  that  "no  attempts  by 
the  unmarried  to  please  or  gratify  each  other  by  acts  of  per- 
sonal attention  were  ever  made."  Jrom  this  we  can,  once 
more,  make  a  natural  transition  from  the  aboriginal  American 
to  the  ancient  Greek.  The  Greek  men,  says  the  erudite 
Becker  (III.,  335),  "  were  quite  strangers.'  ^  '  confederate., 
self-sacrificing  courtesy  and  those  minutrfjr*  °ms  to  women 
which  we  commonly  call  gallantry/'  Gjfl  J^,  t.  ature  and  all 
that  we  know  of  Greek  life,  bear  out  tlwflBBjram  fuflfy.  It 
is  true  the  Alexandrian  poets  and  their  T.J*'  o  iraJoators  fre- 
quently use  the  language  of  sentimental  guAaiitry ;  they  de- 
clare themselves  the  slaves  of  their  mistresses,  *u'e  eager  to 
wear  chains,  to  go  through  fire,  to  die  for  them,  promising  to 
take  their  love  to  the  next  world.  But  all  these  things  are 
mere  " words,  words,  words" — adulation  the  insincerity  of 
which  is  exposed  as  soon  as  we  examine  the  actions  and  the 
motives  of  these  poets,  of  whom  more  will  be  said  in  a  later 
chapter.  Their  flatteries  are  addressed  invariably  to  hetairai ; 
they  are  conceived  and  written  with  the  selfish  desire  to  tickle 
the  vanity  of  these  wantons  in  the  hope  and  expectation  of 
receiving  favors  for  which  the  poets,  who  were  usually  poor, 
\rore  not  able  to  pay  in  any  other  way.  Thus  these  poets  are 
below  the  Arabs,  for  these  sons  of  the  desert  at  least  address 
their  flatteries  to  the  girls  whom  they  are  eager  to  marry, 
whoreas  theGfreek  and  Eoman  poets  sought  merely  to  beguile 
a  class  of  womtfrf  whose  charms  were  for  sale  to  anyone.  One 
of  these  profligate  men  might  cringe  and  wail  and  cajole, 
to  gain  the  good  will  of  a  capricious  courtesan,  but  he  never 
dreamed  of  bending  Ills  knees  to  win  the  honest  love  of  the 
maid  he  took  to  be  his  wife  (that  he  might  have  male  off- 


OVID'S   SHAM   GALLANTRY  189 

spring).  Roman  love  was  not  romantic,  nor  was  Greek.  It 
was  frankly  sensual,  and  the  gallantry  of  the  men  was  of  a 
kind  that  made  them  erect  golden  images  in  public  places  to 
honor  Phryne  and  other  prostitutes.  In  a  word,  their  gal- 
lantry was  sham  gallantry  ;  it  was  gallantry  not  in  the  sense 
of  polite  attentions  to  women,  springing  from  unselfish  cour- 
tesy and  esteem,  but  in  the  sinister  sense  of  profligacy  and 
amorous  intrigue.  There  were  plenty  of  gallants,  but  no 
real  gallantry. 

OVID'S   SHAM   GALLANTRY 

While  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Ovid  exercised  a  greater 
influence  on  mediaeval  bards,  and  through  them  on  modern 
erotic  writers,  than  any  other  ancient  poet,  and  while  I  still 
maintain  that  l^jf  .Xoipated  and  depicted  some  of  the  imagina- 
tive phases  of*' ''mj£~  fi  i°ve  (see  mJ  •#•  L.  P.  B.,  90-92),  a  more 
careful  study™  jiS«7ture  of  gallantry  has  convinced  me  that 
I  erred  in  finding  t>e  "  morning  dawn  of  romantic  love  "  in 
the  counsels  regarding  gallant  behavior  toward  women  given 
in  the  pages  of  Ovid. l  He  does,  indeed,  advise  a  lover  never 
to  notice  the  faults  of  a  woman  whose  favor  he  wishes  to  win, 
but  to  compliment  her,  on  the  contrary,  on  her  face,  her 
hair,  her  tapering  fingers,  her  pretty  foot ;  to  applaud  at  the 
circus  whatever  she  applauds  ;  to  adjust  her  cushion  and  put 
the  footstool  in  its  place ;  to  keep  her  cool  by  fanning  her ; 
and  at  dinner,  when  she  has  put  her  lips  to  the  wine-cup  to 
seize  the  cup  and  put  his  lips  to  the  same  place.  But  when 
Ovid  wrote  this,  nothing  was  farther  from  his  mind  than 
what  we  understand  by  gallantry — an  eagerness  to  perform 
acts  of  disinterested  courtesy  and  deference  for  the  purpose  of 
pleasing  a  respected  or  adored  woman.  His  precepts  are,  on 
the  contrary,  grossly  utilitarian,  being  intended  not  for  a  man 
who  wishes  to  win  the  heart  and  hand  of  an  honest  girl,  but  for 
a  libertine  who  has  no  money  to  buy  the  favors  of  a  wanton, 
and  therefore  must  rely  on  flatteries  and  obsequious  fawning. 

1  It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  correct  my  error  in  this  place.  Not  a  few 
critics  of  my  first  book  censured  me  for  underrating  Roman  advances  in  the  re- 
finements of  love.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I  overrated  them. 


190  ROMANTIC    LOVE— GALLANTRY 

The  poet  declares  expressly  that  a  rich  man  will  not  need  his 
Ars  Amandi,  but  that  it  is  written  for  the  poor,  who  may 
be  able  to  overcome  the  greed  of  the  hetairai  by  tickling  their 
vanity.  He  therefore  teaches  his  readers  how  to  deceive  such 
a  girl  with  false  flattery  and  sham  gallantry.  The  Roman 
poet  uses  the  word  domina,  but  this  domina,  nevertheless,  is 
his  mistress,  not  in  the  sense  of  one  who  dominates  his  heart 
and  commands  his  respect  and  affection,  but  of  a  despised  be- 
ing lower  than  a  concubine,  on  whom  he  smiles  only  till  he 
has  beguiled  her.  It  is  the  story  of  the  cat  and  the  mouse. 


MEDIEVAL  AND  MODERN  GALLANTRY 

How  different  this  from  the  modern  chivalry  which  in  face 
of  womanhood  makes  a  gentleman  evenjjjjhjl4:  a  rough  Cali- 
fornia miner.  Joaquin  Miller  relate™  ^Kf£  presence  of 
even  an  Indian  girl — "  a  bud  that  in  SWBjrKummer  would 
unfold  itself  wide  to  the  sun,"  affected  tne  men  in  one  of 
the  camps.  Though  she  seldom  spoke  with  the  miners,  yet 
the  men  who  lived  near  her  hut  dressed  more  neatly  than 
others,  kept  their  beards  in  shape,  and  shirt-bosoms  buttoned 
up  when  she  passed  by  : 

"  On  her  face,  through  the  tint  of  brown,  lay  the  blush  and 
flush  of  maidenhood,  the  indescribable  sacred  something  that 
makes  a  maiden  holy  to  every  man  of  a  manly  and  chivalrous 
nature  ;  that  makes  a  man  utterly  unselfish  and  perfectly  con- 
tent to  love  and  be  silent,  to  worship  at  a  distance,  as  turning 
to  the  holy  shrines  of  Mecca,  to  be  still  and  bide  his  time  ; 
caring  not  to  posses^  in  the  low,  coarse  way  that  characterizes 
your  common  love  of  to-day,  but  choosing  rather  to  go  to  bat- 
tle for  her — bearing  her  in  his  heart  through  many  lands, 
through  storms  and  death,  with  only  a  word  of  hope,  a  smile, 
a  wave  of  the  hand  from  a  wall,  a  kiss,  blown  far,  as  he 
mounts  his  steed  below  and  plunges  into  the  night.  That  is 
love  to  live  for.  I  say  the  knights  of  Spain,  bloody  as  they 
were,  were  a  noble  and  a  splendid  type  of  men  in  their  day."  1 

1  Life  Among  the  Mbdocs  (228).  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Joaquin  Mil- 
ler here  describes  his  own  ideas  of  chivalry.  He  did  not,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
find  anything  resembling  them  among  the  Modocs.  If  he  had,  he  would  have 
said  so,  for  he  was  their  friend,  and  married  the  girl  referred  to.  But  while 
the  Indians  themselves  never  entertain  any  chivalrous  regard  for  women,  they 


MEDIEVAL   AND   MODERN   GALLANTRY      191 

While  the  knights  of  Spain  and  other  parts  of  mediaeval 
Europe  doubtless  professed  sentiments  of  chivalry  like  those 
uttered  by  Joaquin  Miller,  there  was  as  a  rule  nearly  as  much 
sham  in  their  pretensions  as  in  Ovid's  rules  for  gallant  con- 
duct. In  the  days  of  militant  chivalry,  in  the  midst  of  deeds 
of  extravagant  homage  to  individual  ladies,  women  in  general 
were  as  much  despised  and  maltreated  as  at  any  other  time. 
"  The  chivalrous  spirit  is  above  all  things  a  class  spirit,"  as 
Freeman  wrote  (V.,  482)  :  "  The  good  knight  is  bound  to 
endless  fantastic  courtesies  toward  men,  and  still  more  to- 
ward women,  of  a  certain  rank  ;  he  may  treat  all  below  that 
rank  with  any  degree  of  scorn  and  cruelty."  This  is  still 
very  far  removed  from  the  modern  ideal ;  the  knight  may  be 
considered  to  s+and  half-way  between  the  boor  and  the  gen- 
tleman :  he  i?  ^fjjf  *e,  at  least,  to  some  women,  while  the  gen- 
tleman is  PfJJfrffiftU*  kind,  gentle,  sympathetic,  without 
being  any  thW1  ^'i'uiuly.  Nevertheless  there  was  an  advan- 
tage in  having  some  conception  of  gallantry,  a  determination 
and  vow  to  protect  widows  and  orphans,  to  respect  and 
honor  ladies.  Though  it  was  at  first  only  a  fashion,  with  all 
the  extravagances  and  follies  usual  to  fashions,  it  did  much 
good  by  creating  an  ideal  for  later  generations  to  live  up  to. 
From  this  point  of  view  even  the  quixotic  pranks  of  the 
knights  who  fought  duels  in  support  of  their  challenge  that 
no  other  lady  equalled  theirs  in  beauty,  were  not  without  a 
use.  They  helped  to  enforce  the  fashion  of  paying  deference 
to  women,  and  made  it  a  point  of  honor,  thus  forcing  many 
a  boor  to  assume  at  least  the  outward  semblance  and  conduct 
of  a  gentleman.  The  seed  sown  in  this  rough  and  stony  soil 
has  slowly  grown,  until  it  has  developed  into  true  civilization 
— a  word  of  which  the  last  and  highest  import  is  civility  or 
disinterested  devotion  to  the  weak  and  unprotected,  especially 
to  women. 

are  acute  enough  to  see  that  the  whites  do,  and  to  profit  thereby.  One  morning 
when  I  was  writing  some  pa^es  of  this  book  under  a  tree  at  Lake  Tahoe,  Califor- 
nia, an  Indian  came  to  me  and  told  me  a  pitiful  tale  about  his  "sick  squaw"  in 
one  of  the  neighboring  camps.  I  gave  him  fifty  cents  "  for  the  squaw,"  but 
ascertained  later  that  after  leaving  me  he  had  gone  straight  to  the  bar-room  at 
the  end  of  the  pier  and  filled  himself  up  with  whiskey,  though  he  had  specially 
and  repeatedly  assured  me  he  was  u  damned  good  Indian,"  and  never  drank. 


192  ROMANTIC    LOVE— GALLANTRY 

In  our  days  chivalry  includes  compassion  for  animals  too. 
I  have  never  read  of  a  more  gallant  soldier  than  that  colonel 
who,  as  related  in  Our  Animal  Friends  (May,  1899),  while 
riding  in  a  Western  desert  at  the  head  of  five  hundred  horse- 
men, suddenly  made  a  slight  detour — which  all  the  men  had 
to  follow — because  in  the  direct  path  a  meadow  lark  was  sit- 
ting on  her  nest,  her  soft  brown  eyes  turned  upward,  watch- 
ing, wondering,  fearing.  It  was  a  nobler  deed  than  many  of 
the  most  gallant  actions  in  battle,  for  these  are  often  done 
from  selfish  motives — ambition,  the  hope  of  promotion — while 
this  deed  was  the  outcome  of  pure  unselfish  sympathy. 
"  Five  hundred  horses  had  been  turned  aside,  and  five  hun- 
dred men,  as  they  bent  over  the  defenceless  mother  and  her 
brood,  received  a  lesson  in  that  broad  humanity  which  is  the 
essence  of  higher  life."  fM^  4 

To  this  day  there  are  plenty  of  ruffian^  gtjy  of  them  in 
fine  clothes — who  are  strangers  to  cliivaMMypielmgs  toward 
defenceless  women  or  animals — men  who  beffare  as  gentlemen 
only  under  compulsion  of  public  opinion.  The  encouraging 
thing  is  that  public  opinion  has  taken  so  strong  a  stand  in 
favor  of  women  ;  that  it  has  written  Place  aux  bames  on  its 
shield  in  such  large  letters.  While  the  red  American  squaw 
shared  with  the  dogs  the  bones  left  by  her  contemptuous 
ungallant  husband,  the  white  American  woman  is  served  first 
at  table  and  gets  the  choicest  morsels  ;  she  receives  the 
window-seat  in  the  cars,  the  lower  berth  in  the  sleeper  ;  she 
has  precedence  in  society  and  wherever  she  is  in  her  proper 
place  ;  and  when  a  ship  is  about  to  sink,  the  captain,  if  neces- 
sary (which  is  seldom  the  case),  stands  with  drawn  revolver 
prepared  to  shoot  any  man  who  would  ungallantly  get  into  a 
boat  before  all  the  women  are  saved. 


This  change  from  the  primitive  selfishness  described  in  the 
preceding  pages,  this  voluntary  yielding  by  man  of  the  place 
of  honor  and  of  the  right  of  the  strongest,  is  little  less  than  a 
miracle  ;  it  is  the  grandest  triumph  of  civilization.  Yet  there 


SUMMARY  193 

are  viragoes  who  have  had  the  indecency  to  call  gallantry  an 
"  insult  to  woman."  There  is  indeed  a  kind  of  gallantry — the 
Ovidian — which  is  an  insult  to  women  ;  but  true  masculine 
gallantry  is  woman's  chief  glory  and  conquest,  indicating  the 
transformation  of  the  savage's  scorn  for  woman's  physical 
weakness  into  courteous  deference  to  her  as  the  nobler,  more 
virtuous  and  refined  sex.  There  are  some  selfish,  sour,  disap- 
pointed old  maids,  who,  because  of  their  lack  of  feminine  traits, 
repel  men  and  receive  less  than  their  share  of  gallant  court- 
esy. But  that  is  their  own  fault.  Ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  all 
women  have  a  happier  lot  to-day  than  at  any  previous  time 
in  history,  and  this  change  is  due  to  the  growth  of  the  disin- 
terested courtesy  and  sympathy  known  as  gallantry.  At  the 
same  time  the  change  is  strikingly  illustrated  in  the  status  of 
old  maids  theiK^dvee.  No  one  now  despises  an  unselfish 
woman  simply^jyjfcu^e  she  prefers  to  remain  single  ;  but  for- 
merly old  maBWtfdPe  looked  on  nearly  everywhere  with  a 
contempt  that  reached  its  climax  among  the  Southern  Slavs, 
who,  according  to  Krauss  (Floss,  II.,  491),  treated  ithem  no 
better  than  mangy  dogs.  No  one  associated  with  them  ;  they 
were  not  tolerated  in  the  spinning-room  or  at  the  dances  ;  they 
were  ridiculed  and  derided  ;  were,  in  short,  regarded  as  a  dis- 
grace to  the  family. 

SUMMARY 

To  sum  up  :  among  the  lower  races  man  habitually  de- 
spises and  maltreats  woman,  looking  on  her  as  a  being  made, 
not  for  her  own  sake,  but  for  his  comfort  and  pleasure. 
Gallantry  is  unknown.  The  Australian  who  fights  for  his 
family  shows  courage,  not  gallantry,  for  he  is  simply  pro- 
tecting his  private  property,  and  does  not  otherwise  show 
the  slightest  regard  for  his  women.  Nor  does  the  early 
custom  of  serving  for  a  wife  imply  gallantry  ;  for  here  the 
suitor  serves  the  parents,  not  the  maid  ;  he  simply  adopts 
a  primitive  way  of  paying  for  a  bride.  Sparing  women  in 
battle  for  the  purpose  of  making  concubines  or  slaves  of 
them  is  not  gallantry.  One  might  as  well  call  a  farmer  gal- 
lant because,  when  he  kills  the  young  roosters  for  broilers,  he 


194-  ROMANTIC   LOVE— GALLANTRY 

saves  the  young  hens.  He  lets  these  live  because  he  needs 
eggs.  The  motive  in  both  cases  is  utilitarian  and  selfish. 
Ovidian  gallantry  does  not  deserve  such  a  name,  because  it  is 
nothing  but  false  flattery  for  the  selfish  purpose  of  beguiling 
foolish  women.  Arabic  flatteries  are  of  a  superior  order  be- 
cause sincere  at  the  time  being  and  addressed  to  girls  whom 
the  flatterer  desires  to  marry.  But  this  gallantry,  too,  is 
only  skin  deep.  Its  motives  are  sensual  and  selfish,  for  as 
soon  as  the  girl's  physical  charm  begins  to  fade  she  is  con- 
temptuously discarded. 

Our  modern  gallantry  toward  women  differs  radically  from 
all  those  attitudes  in  being  unselfish.  It  is  synonymous  with 
true  chivalry — disinterested  devotion  to  those  who,  while  phys- 
ically weaker,  are  considered  superior  morally  and  esthetically. 
It  treats  all  women  with  polite  deference,  3jjd  does  so  not  be- 
cause of  a  vow  or  a  code,  but  because  of  the**«H&ral  promptings 
of  a  kind,  sympathetic  disposition.  It  flfreaTOp  woman  not  as 
a  toper  does  a  whiskey  bottle,  applying  it  to  his  lips  as  long  as 
it  can  intoxicate  him  with  pleasure  and  then  throwing  it  away, 
but  cherishes  her  for  supersensual  attributes  that  survive  the 
ravages  of  time.  To  a  lover,  in  particular,  such  gallantry  is 
not  a  duty,  but  a  natural  impulse.  He  lies  awake  nights  de- 
vising plans  for  pleasing  the  object  of  his  devotion.  His  gal- 
lantry is  an  impulse  to  sacrifice  himself  for  the  beloved — an 
instinct  so  inbred  by  generations  of  practice  that  now  even  a 
child  may  manifest  it.  I  remember  how,  when  I  was  six  or 
seven  years  old,  I  once  ran  out  the  school-house  during  re- 
cess to  pick  up  some  Missouri  hailstones,  while  others,  large 
as  marbles,  were  falling  about  me,  threatening  to  smash  my 
skull.  I  gave  the  trophies  to  a  dark-eyed  girl  of  my  age — not 
with  a  view  to  any  possible  reward,  but  simply  because  I 
loved  her  more  than  all  the  other  girls  combined  ?,nd  wanted 
to  please  her. 

A   SUKE   TEST   OF   LOVE 

Black  relates  in  his  Things  Chinese,  that  after  the  wed- 
ding ceremony  "the  bride  tries  hard  ...  to  get  a  piece 
of  her  husband's  dress  under  her  when  she  sits  down,  for  if  she 


A   SURE   TEST   OF   LOVE  195 

does,  it  will  insure  her  having  the  upper  hand  of  him,  while  he 
tries  to  prevent  her  and  to  do  the  same  thing  himself."  Sim- 
ilar customs  prevail  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  as  among  the 
Esthonians.  (Schroeder,  234.)  After  the  priest  has  united 
the  couple  they  walk  toward  the  wagon  or  sleigh,  and  in  doing 
so  each  of  the  two  tries  to  be  first  to  step  on  the  other's  foot, 
because  that  will  decide  who  is  to  rule  at  home.  Imagine 
such  petty  selfishness,  such  a  disgraceful  lack  of  gallantry,  on 
the  very  wedding-day  !  In  our  own  country,  when  we  hear 
of  a  bride  objecting  to  the  word  "  obey  "  in  the  wedding  cere- 
mony, we  may  feel  absolutely  sure  that  the  marriage  is  not  a 
love-match,  at  least  as  far  as  she  is  concerned.  A  girl  truly  in 
love  with  a  man  laughs  at  the  word,  because  she  feels  as  if  she 
would  rather  be  his  slave  than  any  other  man's  queen  ;  and  as 
for  the  lover,  the,, bride's  promise  to  "  obey"  him  seems  mere 
folly,  for  he  is  t/fctermined  she  shall  always  remain  the  auto- 
cratic queen  of  :his  heart  and  actions.  Conjugal  disappoint- 
ments may  modify  that  feeling,  to  be  sure,  but  that  does  not 
alter  the  fact  that  while  romantic  love  exists,  one  of  its 
essential  ingredients  is  an  impulse  of  gallant  devotion  and 
deference  on  both  sides — an  impulse  which  on  occasion  rises 
to  self-sacrifice,  which  is  simply  an  extreme  phase  of  gal- 
lantry. 

XL  ALTRUISTIC  SELF-SACRIFICE 

In  the  very  olden  time,  if  we  may  confide  in  the  ingenious 
Frank  Stockton,  there  lived  a  semi-barbaric  king  who  devised 
a  highly  original  way  of  administering  justice,  leaving  the  ac- 
cused man's  fate  practically  in  his  own  hands.  There  was  an 
arena  with  the  king's  throne  on  one  side  and  galleries  for  the 
people  all  around.  On  a  signal  by  the  king  a  door  beneath  him 
opened  and  the  accused  subject  stepped  out  into  the  amphi- 
theatre. Directly  opposite  the  throne  were  two  doors,  exactly 
alike,  and  side  by  side.  The  person  on  trial  had  to  walk  to 
those  doors  and  open  either  of  them.  If  he  opened  one,  there 
sprang  out  a  fierce  tiger  who  immediately  tore  him  to  pieces  ; 
if  the  other,  there  came  forth  a  beautiful  lady,  to  whom  he 


196  ROMANTIC    LOVE— SELF-SACRIFICE 

was  forthwith  married.  No  one  ever  knew  behind  which  of 
the  doors  was  the  tiger,  so  that  the  audience  no  more  th$n  the 
prisoner  knew  whether  he  was  to  be  devoured  or  married. 

This  semi-barbaric  king  had  a  daughter  who  fell  in  love 
with  a  handsome  young  courtier.  When  the  king  discovered 
this  love-affair  he  cast  the  youth  into  prison  and  had  his 
realm  searched  for  the  fiercest  of  tigers.  The  day  came  when 
the  prisoner  had  to  decide  his  own  fate  in  the  arena  by  open- 
ing one  of  the  doors.  The  princess,  who  was  one  of  the  spec- 
tators, had  succeeded,  with  the  aid  of  gold,  in  discovering  the 
secret  of  the  doors ;  she  knew  from  which  the  tiger,  from 
which  the  lady,  would  issue.  She  knew,  too,  who  the  lady 
was  behind  the  other  door — one  of  the  loveliest  of  the  damsels 
of  the  court — one  who  had  dared  to  raise  her  eyes  to  her  loved 
one  and  had  thereby  aroused  her  fiercest  jealousy.  She  had 
thought  the  matter  over,  and  was  prepw-ed  for  action. 
The  king  gave  the  signal,  and  the  courtier  appeared.  He 
had  expected  the  princess  to  know  on  which  side  lay  safety  for 
him,  nor  was  he  wrong.  To  his  quick  and  anxious  glance  at 
her,  she  replied  by  a  slight,  quick  movement  of  her  arm  to  the 
right.  The  youth  turned,  and  without  the  slightest  hesita- 
tion opened  the  door  on  the  right.  Now,  "  which  came  out 
of  the  opened  door — the  lady  or  the  tiger  ?  " 


THE   LADY   AKD   THE   TIGER 

With  that  question  Stockton  ends  his  story,  and  it  is  gener- 
ally supposed  that  he  does  not  answer  it.  But  he  does,  on 
the  preceding  page,  in  these  words  :  "  Think  of  it,  fair  reader, 
not  as  if  the  decision  of  the  question  depended  upon  yourself, 
but  upon  that  hot-blooded,  semi-barbaric  princess,  her  soul  at 
white  heat  beneath  the  combined  fires  of  despair  and  jealousy. 
She  had  lost  him,  but  who  should  have  him  ? "  In  these 
words  the  novelist  hints  plainly  enough  that  the  question  was 
decided  by  a  sort  of  dog-in-the-manger  jealousy.  If  the  prin- 
cess could  not  have  him,  certainly  her  hated  rival  should 
never  enjoy  his  love.  The  tiger,  we  may  be  sure,  was  behind 
the  door  on  the  right. 


A   GREEK   LOVE-STORY  197 

In  allowing  the  tiger  to  devour  the  courtier,  the  princess 
showed  that  her  love  was  of  the  primitive,  barbarous  type, 
being  in  reality  self-love,  not  other-love.  She  "  loved "  the 
man  not  for  his  own  sake,  but  only  as  a  means  of  gratifying 
her  desires.  If  he  was  lost  to  her,  the  tiger  might  as  well 
dine  on  him.  How  differently  an  American  girl  would  have 
acted,  under  the  impulse  of  romantic  love  !  Not  for  a 
moment  could  she  have  tolerated  the  thought  of  his  dying, 
through  her  fault — the  thought  of  his  agony,  his  shrieks,  his 
blood.  She  would  have  sacrificed  her  own  happiness  instead 
of  her  beloved's  life.  The  lady  would  have  come  out  of  the 
door  opened  by  him.  Suppose  that,  overcome  by  selfish 
jealousy,  she  acted  otherwise ;  and  suppose  that  an  amphi- 
theatre full  of  cultured  men  and  women  witnessed  her  deed  : 
would  there  not  be  a  cry  of  horror,  condemning  her  as  worse 
than  the  tiger,  a*s  absolutely  incapable  of  the  feeling  of  true 
love  ?  And  would  not  this  cry  of  horror  reveal  on  the  part 
of  the  spectators  an  instinctive  perception  of  the  truth  which 
this  chapter,  this  whole  book,  is  written  to  enforce,  that 
voluntary  self-sacrifice,  where  called  for,  is  the  supreme, 
the  infallible,  test  of  love  ? 


A   GREEK    LOVE-STORY 

If  we  imagine  the  situation  reversed — a  man  delivering  his 
"  beloved  "  into  the  clutches  of  a  tiger  rather  than  to  the 
legitimate  caresses  of  a  rival — our  horror  at  his  loveless 
selfishness  would  be  doubled.  Yet  this  is  the  policy  habit- 
ually followed  by  savages  and  barbarians.  In  later  chapters 
instances  will  be  given  of  such  wooers  killing  coveted  girls 
with  their  own  spears  as  soon  as  they  find  that  the  rival  is 
the  winner.  After  what  has  been  said  about  the  absence  of 
unselfish  gallantry  among  the  lower  races  it  would,  of  course, 
be  useless  to  look  for  instances  of  altruistic  self-sacrifice  for  a 
woman's  sake,  since  such  sacrifice  implies  so  much  more  than 
gallantry.  As  for  the  Greeks,  in  all  my  extensive  reading  I 
have  come  across  only  one  author  who  seemingly  appreciates 
the  significance  of  self-sacrifice  for  a  woman  loved.  Pausa- 


198  ROMANTIC    LOVE— SELF-SACRIFICE 

nias,  in  his  Description  of  Greece  (Bk.  VII.,  chap.  21),  relates 
this  love-story  : 

"When  Calydon  still  exisited  there  was  among  the  priests 
of  Dionysus  one  named  Coresus,  whom  love  made,  without 
any  fault  of  his  own,  the  most  wretched  of  mortals.  He 
loved  a  girl  Callirrhoe,  but  as  great  as  his  love  for  her  was  her 
hatred  of  him.  When  all  his  pleadings  and  offerings  of 
presents  failed  to  change  the  girl's  attitude,  he  at  last 
prostrated  himself  before  the  image  of  Dionysus,  imploring 
his  help.  The  god  granted  the  prayers  of  his  priest,  for 
suddenly  the  Calydonians  began  to  lose  their  senses,  like 
drunkards,  and  to  die  in  fits  of  madness.  They  appealed  to 
the  oracle  of  Dodona  .  .  .  which  declared  that  the 
calamity  was  due  to  the  wrath  of  the  god  Dionysus,  and  that 
it  would  not  cease  until  Coresus  had  sacrificed  to  Dionysus 
either  Callirrhoe  or  anyone  else  willing  to  die  for  her.  Now 
when  the  girl  saw  no  way  of  escaping,  she  sought  refuge 
with  her  former  educators,  but  when  they  too  refused  to 
receive  her,  nothing  remained  for  her  but  death.  When  all 
the  preparations  for  the  sacrifice  had  been  made  in  accord- 
ance with  the  precepts  of  the  oracle  of  Dodona,  she  was 
brought  to  the  altar,  adorned  like  an  animal  that  is  to  be 
sacrificed ;  Coresus,  however,  whose  duty  it  was  to  offer  the 
sacrifice,  let  love  prevail  in  place  of  hate,  and  slew  himself 
instead  of  Callirrhoe,  thus  proving  by  his  deed  that  he  had 
been  animated  by  the  purest  love.  But  when  Callirrhoe  saw 
Coresus  as  a  corpse,  overcome  by  pity  and  repentance  for  her 
treatment  of  him,  she  went  and  drowned  herself  in  the 
fountain  not  far  from  the  Calydonian  harbor,  which  since 
that  time  is  known  as  the  fountain  of  Callirrhoe." 

If  a  modern  lover,  desiring  to  possess  a  girl,  got  her  into 
a  predicament  which  culminated  in  the  necessity  of  his  either 
slaying  her  with  his  own  hands  or  killing  himself,  and  did  not 
choose  the  latter  alternative,  we  should  regard  him  as  more 
contemptible  than  the  vilest  assassin.  To  us  self-sacrifice  in 
such  a  case  would  seem  not  a  test  of  love,  nor  even  of  hon- 
or so  much  as  of  common  decency,  and  we  should  expect  a 
man  to  submit  to  it  even  if  his  love  of  the  poor  girl  had  been 
a  mere  infatuation  of  the  senses.  However,  in  view  of  the  con- 
tempt for  women,  and  for  love  for  women,  prevalent  among 
the  Greeks  in  general,  we  may  perhaps  discover  at  least  a 
gleam  of  better  things  in  this  legend  of  masculine  self-sacrifice. 


PERSIAN   LOVE  199 


PERSIAN    LOVE 

A  closer  approximation  to  our  ideal  may  be  found  in  a 
story  related  by  the  Persian  poet  Saadi  (358) : 

"  There  was  a  handsome  and  well-disposed  young  man, 
who  was  embarked  in  a  vessel  with  a  lovely  damsel  :  I  have 
read  that,  sailing  on  the  mighty  deep,  they  fell  together  into 
a  whirlpool :  When  the  pilot  came  to  offer  him  assistance  ; 
God  forbid  that  he  should  perish  in  that  distress  ;  he  was 
answering,  from  the  midst  of  that  overwhelming  vortex,  Leave 
me  and  take  the  hand  of  my  beloved  !  The  whole  world 
admired  him  for  this  speech,  which,  as  he  was  expiring,  he 
was  heard  to  make  ;  learn  not  the  tale  of  love  from  that 
faithless  wretch  who  can  neglect  his  mistress  when  exposed 
to  danger.  In  this  manner  ended  the  lives  of  those  lovers  ; 
listen  to  what  has  happened,  that  von  may  understand ;  for 
Saudi  knows  the  ways  and  forms  of  courtship,  as  well  as  the 
Tazi,  or  modern  Arabic,  is  understood  at  Baghdad/' 

How  did  this  Persian  poet  get  such  a  correct  and  modern 
notion  about  love  into  his  head  ?  Obviously  not  from  his  ex- 
periences and  observations  at  home,  for  the  Persians,  as  the 
scholarly  Dr.  Polak  observes  in  his  classical  work  on  them  (I., 
206),  do  not  know  love  in  our  sense  of  the  word.  The  love 
of  which  their  poets  sing  has  either  a  symbolical  or  an  entirely 
carnal  meaning.  Girls  are  married  off  without  any  choice  of 
their  own  at  the  early  age  of  twelve  or  thirteen  ;  they  are  re- 
garded as  capital  and  sold  for  cash,  and  children  are  often  en- 
gaged in  the  cradle.  When  a  Persian  travels,  he  leaves  his 
wife  at  home  and  enters  into  a  temporary  marriage  with  other 
women  in  the  towns  he  visits.  In  rural  districts  if  the 
traveller  is  a  person  of  rank,  the  mercenary  peasants  eagerly 
offer  their  daughters  for  such  "  marriages."  (Hellwald,  439.) 
Like  the  Greek  poets  the  Persians  show  their  contempt  for 
women  by  always  speaking  of  boy-favorites  when  their  lan- 
guage rises  above  the  coarsest  sensuality.  Public  opinion  re- 
garding Persian  stories  and  poems  has  been  led  astray  by  the 
changes  of  sex  and  the  expurgations  made  freely  by  transla- 
tors. Burton,  whose  version  of  the  Tlwusand  and  One  Nights 
was  suppressed  in  England,  wrote  (F.  F.,  36),  that  "about 


200  ROMANTIC    LOVE— SELF-SACRIFICE 

one-fifth  is  utterly  unfit  for  translation,  and  the  most  san- 
guine Orientalist  would  not  dare  to  render  literally  more  than 
three-quarters  of  the  remainder." 

Where,  then,  I  repeat,  did  Saadi  get  that  modern  European 
idea  of  altruistic  self-sacrifice  as  a  test  of  love  ?  Evidently 
from  Europe  by  way  of  Arabia.  His  own  language  indicates 
this — his  suspicious  boast  of  his  knowledge  of  real  love  as  of 
one  who  has  just  made  a  strange  discovery,  and  his  coupling 
it  with  the  knowledge  of  Arabic.  Now  it  is  well  known  that 
ever  since  the  ninth  century  the  Persian  mind  had  been 
brought  into  a  contact  with  the  Arabic  which  became  more 
and  more  intimate.  The  Arabs  had  a  habit  of  sacrificing 
their  lives  in  chivalrous  efforts  to  save  the  life  or  honor  of 
maidens  whom  the  enemy  endeavored  to  kidnap.  The  Arabs, 
on  their  part,  were  in  close  contact  with  the  European  minds, 
and  as  they  helped  to  originate  the  chivalrous  spirit  in  Eu- 
rope, so  they  must  have  been  in  turn  influenced  by  the  devel- 
opments of  the  troubadour  spirit  which  culminated  in  such 
maxims  as  Montagnogout's  declaration  that  "  a  true  lover  de- 
sires a  thousand  times  more  the  happiness  of  his  beloved  than 
his  own."  As  Saadi  lived  in  the  time  of  the  troubadours — 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries — it  was  easy  for  him  to 
get  a  knowledge  of  the  European  "  ways  and  forms  of  court- 
ship." In  Persia  itself  there  was  no  courtship  or  legitimate 
lovemaking,  for  the  "  lover  "  hardly  ever  had  met  his  bride 
before  the  wedding-day.  Nevertheless,  if  we  may  believe 
William  Franklin,1  a  Persian  woman  might  command  a 
suitor  to  spend  all  day  in  front  of  her  house  reciting  verses 
in  praise  of  her  beauty ;  and  H.  C.  Trumbull  naively  cites, 
as  evidence  that  Orientals  love  just  as  we  do,  the  following 
story  : 

"Morier  tells  .  .  .  of  a  large  painting  in  a  pleasure-house 
in  Shiraz,  illustrative  of  the  treatment  of  a  loyal  lover  by  a 
heartless  coquette,  which  is  one  of  the  popular  legends  of 
Persia.  Sheik  Chenan,  a  Persian  of  the  true  faith,  and  a  man 
of  learning  and  consequence,  fell  in  love  with  an  Armenian  lady 
of  great  beauty  who  would  not  marry  him  unless  he  changed 

1  Magazin  von  Reisebeschreibungen,  L,  283. 


PERSIAN   LOVE  201 

his  religion.  To  this  he  agreed.  Still  she  would  not  marry 
him  unless  he  would  drink  wine.  This  scruple  also  he 
ielded.  She  resisted  still,  unless  he  consented  to  eat  pork, 
h  this  also  he  complied.  Still  she  was  coy,  and  refused 
to  fulfil  her  engagement,  unless  he  would  be  contented  to 
drive  swine  before  her.  Even  this  condition  he  accepted. 
She  then  told  him  that  she  would  not  have  him  at  all,  and 
laughed  at  him  for  his  pains.  The  picture  represents  the 
coquette  at  her  window,  laughing  at  Sheik  Chenan  as  he  is 
driving  his  pigsfbefore  her." 

This  story  suggests  and  may  have  been  invented  in  imita- 
tion of  the  foolish  and  capricious  tests  "to  which  mediaeval 
dames  in  Europe  put  their  quixotic  knights.  Few  of  these 
knights,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere  (R.  L.  P.  B.,  100),  "were  so 
manly  as  the  one  in  Schiller's  ballad,  who,  after  fetching  his 
lady's  glove  from  the  lion's  den,  threw  it  in  her  face/'  to 
show  how  his  feelings  toward  her  had  changed.  If  the  Persian 
in  TrumbulFs  story  had  been  manly  and  refined  enough  to  be 
capable  of  genuine  love,  his  feelings  toward  a  woman  who 
could  wantonly  subject  him  to  such  persistent  insults  and  de- 
gradation, would  have  turned  into  contempt.  Ordinary  sen- 
sual infatuation,  on  the  other  hand,  would  be  quite  strong 
enough  and  unprincipled  enough  to  lead  a  man  to  sacrifice 
religion,  honor,  and  self-respect,  for  a  capricious  woman. 
This  kind  of  self-sacrifice  is  not  a  test  of  true  love,  for  it  is 
not  altruistic.  The  sheik  did  not  make  his  sacrifice  to  bene- 
fit the  woman  he  coveted,  but  to  benefit  himself,  as  he  saw 
no  other  way  of  gratifying  his  own  selfish  desires.1 

1  The  Rev.  Isaac  Malek  Yonan  tells  us,  in  his  book  on  Persian  Women  (138), 
that  most  Armenian  women  "are  very  low  in  the  moral  scale."  It  is  obvious 
that  only  one  of  the  wanton  class  could  be  in  question  in  Trumbull's  story,  for  the 
respectable  women  are,  as  Yonan  says,  not  even  permitted  to  talk  loudly  or  free- 
ly in  the  presence  of  men.  This  clergyman  is  a  native  Persian,  and  the  account 
he  gives  of  his  countrywomen,  unbiassed  and  sorrowful,  shows  that  the  chances 
for  romantic  love  are  no  better  in  modern  Persia  than  they  were  in  the  olden 
times.  The  women  get  no  education,  hence  they  grow  up  "  really  stupid  and 
childlike."  He  refers  to  "the  low  estimation  in  which  women  are  held,"  and 
says  that  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  girls  about  to  be  married  are  not  consulted. 
Girls  are  seldom  betrothed  later  than  the  seventh  to  the  tenth  year,  often,  in- 
deed, immediately  after  birth  or  even  before.  The  wife  cannot  sit  at  the  same 
table  with  her  husband,  but  must  wait  on  him  "  like  an  accomplished  slave." 
After  he  has  eaten  she  washes  his  hands,  lights  his  pipe,  then  retires  to  a 
respectful  distance,  her  face  turned  toward  the  mud  wall,  and  finishes  what  is 
left.  If  she  is  ill  or  in  trouble,  she  does  not  mention  it  to  him,  "for  she  could 
only  be  sure  of  harsh,  rough  words  instead  of  loving  sympathy."  Their  de- 


202  ROMANTIC   LOVE— SELF-SACRIFICE 


HERO   AND   LEANDER 

Very  great  importance  attaches  to  this  distinction  between 
selfish  and  altruistic  self-sacrifice.  The  failure  to  make  this 
distinction  is  perhaps  more  than  anything  else  responsible  for 
the  current  belief  that  romantic  love  was  known  to  the  ancients. 
Did  not  Leander  risk  and  sacrifice  his  life  for  Hero,  swimming 
to  her  at  night  across  the  stormy  Hellespont  ?  Gentle  reader, 
he  did  not.  He  risked  his  life  for  the  purpose  of  continuing 
his  illicit  amours  with  a  priestess  of  Venus  in  a  lonely  tower. 
As  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter  devoted  to  Greek  romances, 
there  is  in  the  story  told  by  Musaeus  not  a  single  trait  rising 
above  frank  sensuality.  In  his  eagerness  to  gratify  his  appe- 
tite, Leander  risked  Hero's  life  as  well  as  his  own.  His  swim- 
ming across  the  strait  was,  moreover,  no  more  than  any  ani- 
mal would  do  to  meet  its  mate  on  the  other  side  of  a  river. 
It  was  a  romantic  thing  to  do,  but  it  was  no  proof  of  roman- 
tic love.  Bearing  in  mind  what  Westermarck  says  (134) — 
"  With  wild  animals  sexual  desire  is  not  less  powerful  as  an 
incentive  to  strenuous  exertion  than  hunger  and  thirst.  In 
the  rut-time,  the  males,  even  of  the  most  cowardly  species, 
engage  in  mortal  combats " — we  see  that  Hero's  risking  of 
death  for  the  sake  of  his  intrigue  was  not  even  a  mark  of 
exceptional  courage  ;  and  regarding  the  quality  and  nature  of 
his  "  love"  it  tells  us  nothing  whatever. 


THE   ELEPHANT  AND  THE   LOTOS 

In  the  Hindoo  drama  Malavika  and  Agnimitra,  Kalidasa 
represents  the  king  as  seeking  an  interview  with  a  new  flame 

graded  Oriental  customs  have  led  the  Persians  to  the  conclusion  that  "love 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  matrimonial  connection,"  the  main  purpose  of 
marriage  being  "  the  convenience  and  pleasure  of  a  degenerate  people"  (34-114). 
So  far  this  Persian  clergyman.  His  conclusions  are  borne  out  by  the  observa- 
tions of  the  keen-eyed  Isabella  Bird  Bishop,  who  relates  in  her  book  on  Persia 
how  she  was  constantly  besieged  by  the  women  for  potions  to  bring  back  the 
"  love  "  of  their  husbands,  or  to  "  make  the  favorite  hateful  to  him."  She  was 
asked  if  European  husbands  "divorce  their  wives  when  they  are  forty?"  A 
Persian  who  spoke  French  assured  her  that  marriage  in  his  country  was  like 
buying  u  a  pig  in  a  poke,"  and  that  "  a  woman's  life  in  Persia  is  a  very  sad 
thing." 


THE  ELEPHANT  AND  THE  LOTOS     203 

of  his.  When  his  companion  warns  him  that  the  queen  might 
surprise  them,  the  king  answers  : 

When  the  elephant  sees  the  lotos  leaves 
He  fears  no  crocodile. 

Lotos  leaves  being  the  elephant's  favorite  food,  these  lines 
admirably  sum  up  the  Hindoo  idea  of  risking  life  for  "  love" 
— cupboard  love.  But  would  the  elephant  risk  his  life  to 
save  the  beautiful  lotos  flowers  from  destruction  ?  Foolish 
question  !  Was  not  the  lotos  created  to  gratify  the  elephant's 
appetite  just  as  beautiful  women  were  created  to  subserve 
man's  desires  ? 

Fighting  crocodiles  for  the  sake  of  the  sweet  lotos  is  a 
characteristic  of  primitive  "  love "  in  all  its  various  strata. 
"  Nothing  is  more  certain,"  writes  M'Lean  (135),  "  than  that 
the  enamoured  Esquimau  will  risk  life  and  limb  in  the  pur- 
suit of  his  object/'  Women,  he  says,  are  the  main  cause  of 
all  quarrels  among  the  Esquimaux  ;  and  the  same  is  true  of 
the  lower  races  in  general.  If  an  Australian  wants  to  run 
away  with  another  man's  wife,  the  thought  of  risking  his  life 
— and  hers  too — does  not  restrain  him  one  moment.  As- 
cending to  the  Greeks,  we  may  cite  Robert  Burton's  summing 
up  of  one  of  their  legends  : 

"  Thirteen  proper  young  men  lost  their  lives  for  that  fair 
Hipodamia's  sake,  the  daughter  of  Onomaus,  King  of  Elis  : 
when  that  hard  condition  was  proposed  of  death  or  victory 
[in  a  race],  they  made  no  account  of  it,  but  courageously  for 
love  died,  till  Pelops  at  last  won  her  by  a  sleight." 

What  is  this  but  another  version  of  the  story  of  the  lotos  and 
the  elephant  ?  The  prize  was  great,  and  worth  the  risk. 
Men  risk  their  lives  daily  for  gold,  and  for  objects  infinitely 
less  attractive  to  the  senses  and  the  selfish  ambitions  than  a 
beautiful  princess.  In  the  following,  which  Burton  quotes 
from  Hoedus,  the  sensual  and  selfish  basis  of  all  such  con- 
fronting of  death  for  "  love's  "  sake  is  laid  bare  to  the  bone  : 

"  What  shall  I  say  of  the  great  dangers  they  undergo, 
single  combats  they  undertake*  how  they  will  venture  their 
lives,  creep  in  at  windows,  gutters,  climb  over  walls  to  come 


204  ROMANTIC   LOVE— SELF-SACRIFICE 

to  their  sweethearts,  and  if  they  be  surprised,  leap  out  at 
windows,  cast  themselves  headlong  down,  bruising  or  break- 
ing, their  legs  or  arms,  and  sometimes  losing  life  itself,  as 
Calisto  did  for  his  lovely  Melibcea  ?  " 

I  have  known  rich  young  Americans  and  Europeans  risk  their 
lives  over  and  over  again  in  such  "gallant"  adventures,  but 
if  I  had  asked  them  if  they  loved  these  women,  i.e.,  felt  such 
a  disinterested  affection  for  them  (like  a  mother's  for  her  child) 
that  they  would  have  risked  their  lives  to  benefit  them  when 
there  w.as  nothing  to  gain  for  themselves — they  would  have 
laughed  in  my  face.  Whence  we  see  how  foolish  it  is  to  infer 
from  such  instances  of  "gallantry"  and  "  self-sacrifice"  that 
the  ancients  knew  romantic  love  in  our  sense  of  the  word. 
It  is  useless  to  point  to  passages  like  this  (again  from  Bur- 
ton) :  "  Polienus,  when  his  mistress  Circe  did  but  frown 
upon  him,  in  Petronius,  drew  his  sword,  and  bade  her  kill, 
stab,  or  whip  him  to  death,  he  would  strip  himself  naked  and 
not  resist."  Such  fine  talk  occurs  in  Tibullus  and  other 
poets  of  the  time  ;  but  where  are  the  actions  corresponding 
to  it  ?  Where  do  we  read  of  these  Romans  and  Greeks  ever 
braving  the  crocodile  for  the  sake  of  preserving  the  purity  of 
the  lotos  herself  ?  Or  of  sparing  a  lotos  belonging  to  an- 
other, but  at  their  mercy  ?  Perseus  himself,  much  vaunted 
for  his  chivalry,  did  not  undertake  to  save  the  rock-chained 
Andromeda  from  the  sea  monster  until  he  had  extorted  a 
promise  that  she  should  be  his  prize.  Fine  sort  of  chivalry, 
that! 

SUICIDE   IS   SELFISH 

One  more  species  of  pseudo-self-sacrifice  remains  to  be  con- 
sidered. When  Hero  finds  Leander's  dead  body  on  the  rocks 
she  commits  suicide.  Is  not  this  self-sacrifice  for  love's  sake  ? 
It  is  always  so  considered,  and  Eckstein,  in  his  eagerness  to 
prove  that  the  ancient  Greeks  knew  romantic  love,1  gives  a 
list  of  six  legendary  suicides  from  hopeless  or  foiled  love. 
The  question  of  suicide  is  an  interesting  one  and  will  be  con- 
sidered in  detail  in  the  chapter  on  the  American  Indians, 

1  llagazin  fiir  d.  Lit.  des  In-  und  Auslandes,  June  30,  1888. 


SUICIDE   IS   SELFISH  205 

who,  like  other  savages,  were  addicted  to  it,  in  many  cases 
for  the  most  trivial  reasons.  In  this  place  I  will  content  my- 
self with  noting  that  if  Eckstein  had  taken  the  pains  to 
peruse  the  four  volumes  of  Ramdohr's  Venus  Urania  (a 
formidable  task,  I  admit),  he  would  have  found  an  author 
who  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  knew  that  suicide  is  no 
test  of  true  love.  There  are  indeed,  he  says  (III.,  46),  plenty 
of  old  stories  of  self-sacrifice,  but  they  are  all  of  the  kind  where 
a  man  risks  comfort  and  life  to  secure  possession  of  a  coveted 
body  for  his  own  enjoyment,  or  else  where  he  takes  his  own 
life  because  he  feels  lonely  after  having  failed  to  secure  the 
desired  union.  These  actions  are  no  index  of  love,  for  they 
"may  coexist  with  the  cruelest  treatment"  of  the  coveted 
woman.  Very  ambitious  persons  or  misers  may  commit  sui- 
cide after  losing  honor  or  wealth,  and  "a  coarse  negro,  in 
face  of  the  danger  of  losing  his  sweetheart,  is  capable  of 
casting  himself  into  the  ocean  with  her,  or  of  plunging  his 
dagger  into  her  breast  and  then  into  his  own."  All  this  is 
selfish.  The  only  true  index  of  love,  Ramdohr  continues, 
lies  in  the  sacrifice  of  one's  own  happiness  for  another's  sake; 
in  resigning  one's  self  to  separation  from  the  beloved,  or 
even  to  death,  if  that  is  necessary  to  secure  her  happiness  or 
welfare.  Of  such  self-sacrifice  he  declares  he  cannot  find  a 
single  instance  in  the  records  and  stories  of  the  ancients  ;  nor 
can  I. 

The  suicide  of  Dido  after  her  desertion  by  ^Eneas  is  often 
cited  as  proof  of  love,  but  Ramdohr  insists  (338)  that,  apart 
from  the  fact  that  "a  woman  really  in  love  would  not  have 
pursued  ^Eneas  with  curses,"  such  an  act  as  hers  was  the  out- 
come of  purely  selfish  despair,  on  a  par  with  the  suicide  of  a 
miser  after  the  loss  of  his  money.  It  is  needless  to  add  to  this 
that  Hero's  suicide  was  likewise  selfish  ;  for  of  what  possible 
benefit  was  it  to  the  dead  Leander  that  she  took  her  own  life 
in  a  cowardly  fit  of  despondency  at  having  lost  her  chief  source 
of  delight  ?  Had  she  lost  her  life  in  an  effort  to  save  his,  the 
case  would  have  been  different. 

Instances  of  women  sacrificing  themselves  for  men's  sake 
abound  in  ancient  literature,  though 'I  am  not  so  sure  that  they 


206  ROMANTIC   LOVE— AFFECTION 

abounded  in  life,  except  under  compulsion,  as  in  the  Hindoo 
suttee.1  As  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  India,  tales  of  fem- 
inine self-sacrifice  were  among  the  means  craftily  employed 
by  men  to  fortify  and  gratify  their  selfishness.  Still,  in  the 
long  run,  just  as  man's  fierce  " jealousy"  helped  to  make 
women  chaster  than  men,  so  the  inculcation  in  women  of  self- 
sacrifice  as  a  duty,  gradually  made  them  naturally  inclined 
to  that  virtue — an  inclination  which  was  strengthened  by 
inveterate,  deep-rooted,  maternal  love.  Thus  it  happened 
that  self-sacrifice  assumed  rank  in  course  of  time  as  a  spe- 
cifically feminine  virtue ;  so  much  so  that  the  German  meta- 
physician Fichte  could  declare  that  "the  woman's  life  should 
disappear  in  the  man's  without  a  remnant,"  and  that  this 
process  is  love.  No  doubt  it  is  love,  but  love  demands  at 
the  same  time  that  the  man's  life  should  disappear  in  the 
woman's. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  sexual  aspects  of  gallantry  and 
self-sacrifice.  Women  are  prevented  by  custom,  etiquette,  and 
inbred  coyness  from  showing  gallant  attentions  to  men  before 
marriage,  whereas  the  impulse  to  sacrifice  happiness  or  life 
for  love's  sake  is  at  least  as  strong  in  them  as  in  men,  and  of 
longer  standing.  If  a  girl  of  aifectionate  impulses  on  hearing 
that  the  man  she  loved — though  he  might  not  have  proposed 
to  her — lay  wounded,  or  ill  of  yellow  fever,  in  a  hospital,  threw 
away  all  reserve,  coyness,  and  fear  of  violating'decorum,  and 
went  to  nurse  him  day  and  night,  at  imminent  risk  of  her  own 
life,  all  the  world  would  applaud  her,  convinced  that  she  had 
done  a  more  feminine  thing  than  if  she  had  allowed  coyness 
to  suppress  her  sympathetic  and  self-sacrificing  impulses. 


XII.    AFFECTION 

A  German  poem  printed  in  the  Wunderhorn  relates  how 
a  young  man,  after  a  long  absence  from  home,  returns  and 
eagerly  hastens  to  see  his  former  sweetheart.  He  finds  her 

1  The  philosophy  of  widow-burning  will  be  explained  under  the  head  of  Con- 
jugal Love. 


EROTIC   ASSASSINS  207 

standing  in  the  doorway  and  informs  her  that  her  beauty 
pleases  his  heart  as  much  as  ever  : 

Gott  griiss  dich,  du  Hiibsche,  du  Feine, 
Von  Herzen  gefallst  du  mir. 

To  which  she  retorts  :  "What  need  is  there  of  my  pleasing 
you  ?  I  got  a  husband  long  ago — a  handsome  man,  well 
able  to  take  care  of  me."  Whereupon  the  disappointed  lover 
draws  his  knife  and  stabs  her  through  the  heart. 

In  his  History  of  German  Song  (chap,  v.),  Edward  Schure 
comments  on  this  poem  in  the  following  amazing  fashion  : 

"  How  necessary  yet  how  tragic  is  this  answer  with  the  knife 
to  the  heartless  challenge  of  the  former  sweetheart !  How 
fatal  and  terrible  is  this  sudden  change  of  a  passionate  soul 
from  ardent  love  to  the  wildest  hatred  !  We  see  him  taking 
one  step  back,  we  see  how  he  trembles,  how  the  flush  of  rage 
suffuses  his  face,  and  how  his  love,  offended,  injured,  and 
dragged  in  the  dust,  slakes  its  thirst  with  the  blood  of  the 
faithless  woman. " 

EROTIC   ASSASSINS 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  such  a  villanous  sentiment 
should  have  been  allowed  to  appear  in  a  book  without  sending 
its  author  to  prison.  "  Necessary  "  to  murder  a  sweetheart 
because  she  has  changed  her  mind  during  a  man's  long  ab- 
sence !  The  wildest  anarchist  plot  never  included  a  more 
diabolical  idea.  Brainless,  selfish,  impulsive  young  idiots 
are  only  too  apt  to  act  on  that  principle  if  their  proposals  are 
not  accepted  ;  the  papers  contain  cases  nearly  every  week  of 
poor  girls  murdered  for  refusing  an  unwelcome  suitor ;  but 
the  world  is  beginning  to  understand  that  it  is  illogical  and 
monstrous  to  apply  the  sacred  word  of  love  to  the  feeling 
which  animates  these  cowardly  assassins,  whose  only  motives 
are  selfish  lust  and  a  dog-in-the-manger  jealousy.  Love  never 
"  slakes  its  thirst "  with  the  blood  of  a  woman.  Had  that 
man  really  loved  that  woman,  he  would  have  been  no  more 
capable  of  murdering  her  than  of  murdering  his  father  for 
disinheriting  him. 


208  ROMANTIC    LOVE— AFFECTION 

Schure  is  by  no  means  the  only  author  who  has  thus  con- 
founded love  with  murderous,  jealous  lust.  A  most  astound- 
ing instance  occurs  in  Goethe's  Werther —  the  story  of  a 
common  servant  who  conceived  a  passion  for  a  well-to-do 
widow. 

He  lost  his  appetite,  his  sleep,  forgot  his  errands ;  an  evil 
spirit  pursued  him.  One  day,  finding  her  alone  in  the  gar- 
ret, he  made  an  improper  proposal  to  her,  and  on  her  refus- 
ing he  attempted  violence,  from  which  she  was  saved  only 
through  the  timely  arrival  of  her  brother.  In  defending  his 
conduct  the  servant,  in  a  most  ungallant,  unmanly,  and  cow- 
ardly way,  tried  to  fasten  the  guilt  on  the  widow  by  saying 
that  she  had  previously  allowed  him  to  take  some  liberties 
with  her.  He  was  of  course  promptly  ejected  from  the 
house,  and  when  subsequently  another  man  was  engaged  to 
take  his  place,  and  began  to  pay  his  addresses  to  the  widow, 
the  discharged  servant  fell  upon  him  and  assassinated  him. 
And  this  disgusting  exhibition  of  murderous  lust  and  jeal- 
ousy leads  Goethe  to  exclaim,  rapturously  :  "This  love,  this 
fidelity  (!),  this  passion,  is  thus  seen  to  be  no  invention  of  the 
poets  (!).  It  lives,  it  is  to  be  found  in  its  greatest  purity  (!) 
among  that  class  of  people  whom  we  call  uneducated  and 
coarse." 

In  view  of  the  sensual  and  selfish  attitude  which  Goethe 
held  toward  women  all  his  life,  it  is  perhaps  not  strange 
that  he  should  have  written  the  silly  words  just  quoted.  It 
was  probably  a  guilty  conscience,  a  desire  to  extenuate  selfish 
indulgence  at  the  expense  of  a  poor  girl's  virtue  and  happi- 
ness, that  led  him  to  represent  his  hero,  Werther,  as  using 
every  possible  effort  in  court  to  secure  the  pardon  of  that 
erotomaniac  who  had  first  attempted  rape  and  then  finished 
up  by  assassinating  his  rival. 

If  Werther's  friend  had  murdered  the  widow  herself, 
Goethe  would  have  been  logically  bound  to  see  in  his  act  still 
stronger  evidence  of  the  "reality,"  "fidelity,"  and  "puri- 
ty "  of  love  among  "  people  whom  we  call  uneducated  and 
coarse."  And  if  Goethe  had  lived  to  read  the  Rev.  W.  W. 
Gill's  Savage  Life  in  Polynesia,  he  might  have  found 


THE   WISDOM    OF   SOLOMON  209 

therein  (118)  a  story  of  cannibal  "  love  "  still  more  calcu- 
lated to  arouse  his  rapturous  enthusiasm — 

"  An  ill-looking  but  brave  warrior  of  the  cannibal  tribe  of 
Ruanae,  named  Vete,  fell  violently  in  love  with  a  pretty  girl 
named  Tanuau,  who  repelled  his  advances  and  foolishly  re- 
viled him  for  his  ugliness.  His  only  thought  now  was  how 
to  toe  revenged  for  this  unpardonable  insult.  He  could  not 
kill  her,  as  she  wisely  kept  to  the  encampment  of  Mantara. 
After  some  months  Tanuau  sickened  and  died.  The  corpse 
was  conveyed  across  the  island  to  be  let  down  the  chasm  of 
Kaupa,  the  usual  burial-place  of  her  tribe." 

Vete  chose  this  as  the  time  for  revenge.  Arrangements 
were  made  to  intercept  the  corpse  secretly,  and  he  had  it 
carried  away.  It  was  too  decomposed  to  be  eaten,  so  they  cut 
it  in  pieces  and  burned  it — burning  anything  belonging  to  a 
person  being  the  greatest  injury  one  can  inflict  on  a  native. 


THE    WISDOM    OF   SOLOMON 

But  what  have  all  these  disgusting  stories  to  do  with  affec- 
tion, the  subject  of  this  chapter  ?  Nothing  whatever — and 
that  is  why  I  have  put  them  here — to  show  in  a  glaring  light 
that  what  Groethe  and  Schure,  and  doubtless  thousands  of 
their  readers  accepted  as  love  is  not  love,  since  there  is  no 
affection  in  it/  A  true  patriot,  a  man  who  feels  an  affection 
for  his  country,  lays  down  his  life  for  it  without  a  thought  of 
personal  advantage  ;  and  if  his  country  treats  him  ungratefully 
he  does  not  turn  traitor  and  assassin — like  the  German  and 
Polynesian  "lovers"  we  have  just  read  about.  A  real  lover 
is  indeed  overjoyed  to  have  his  affection  returned  ;  but  if  it 
is  not  reciprocated  he  is  none  the  less  affectionate,  none  the 
less  ready  to  lay  down  his  life  for.  the  other,  and,  above  all,  he 
is  utterly  incapable  of  taking  hers.  What  creates  this  differ- 
ence between  lust  and  love  is  affection,  and,  so  far  at  least  as 
maternal  love  is  concerned,  the  nature  of  affection  was  known 
thousands  of  years  ago.  When  two  mothers  came  before 
King  Solomon,  each  claiming  the  same  child  as  her  own,  the 
king  sent  for  a  sword  and  said,  "  Divide  the  living  child  in 


210  ROMANTIC    LOVE— AFFECTION 

two,  and  give  half  to  the  one  and  half  to  the  other."  To  this 
the  false  claimant  agreed,  but  the  real  mother  exclaimed,  "  0 
my  lord,  give  her  the  living  child  and  in  no  wise  slay  it." 
Then  the  king  knew  that  she  was  the  child's  mother  and  gave 
him  to  her.  "  And  all  Israel  saw  that  the  wisdom  of  God 
was  in  Solomon,  to  do  judgment." 

If  we  ask  why  this  infallible  test  of  love  was  not  applied  to 
the  sexual  passion,  the  answer  is  that  it  would  have  failed,  be- 
cause ancient  love  between  the  sexes  was,  as  all  the  testimony 
collected  in  this  book  shows,  too  sensual  and  selfish  to  stand 
such  a  test.  Yet  it  is  obvious  that  if  we  to-day  are  to  apply 
the  word  love  to  the  sexual  relations,  we  must  use  the  same 
test  of  disinterested  affection  that  we  use  in  the  case  of  ma- 
ternal love  or  love  of  country ;  and  that  love  is  not  love  be- 
fore affection  is  added  to  all  the  other  ingredients  heretofore 
considered.  In  that  servant's  "love"  which  so  excited  the 
wonder  of  Goethe,  only  three  of  the  fourteen  ingredients  of 
love  were  present — individual  preference,  monopoly,  and  jeal- 
ousy— and  those  three,  as  we  have  seen,  occur  also  in  plain 
lust.  '  Of  the  tender,  altruistic,  loving  traits  of  love — sym- 
pathy, adoration,  gallantry,  self-sacrifice,  affection — there  is 
not  a  trace. 

STUFF   AND    NONSENSE 

When  a  great  poet  can  blunder  so  flagrantly  in  his  diagnosis 
of  love,  we  cannot  wonder  that  minor  writers  should  often  be 
erratic.  For  instance,  in  TJie  Snake  Dance  of  the  Moquis  of 
Arizona  (45-46),  Captain  J.  D.  Bourke  exclaims  :  "  So  much 
stuff  and  nonsense  has  been  written  about  the  entire  absence 
of  affection  from  the  Indian  character,  especially  in  the  rela- 
tions between  the  sexes,  that  it  affords  me  great  pleasure  to 
note  this  little  incident " — namely,  a  scene  between  an  Indian 
and  a  young  squaw  : 

"  They  had  evidently  only  lately  had  a  quarrel,  for  which 
each  was  heartily  sorry.  He  approached,  and  was  received 
with  a  disdain  tempered  with  so  much  sweetness  and  affec- 
tion that  he  wilted  at  once,  and,  instead  of  boldly  asserting 
himself,  dared  do  nothing  but  timidly  touch  her  hand.  The 


SACRIFICES    OF    CANNIBAL    HUSBANDS        211 

touch,  1  imagine,  was  not  disagreeable,  because  the  girl's 
hand  was  soon  firmly  held  in  his,  and  he,  with  earnest  warmth, 
was  pouring  into  her  ear  words  whose  purport  it  was  not 
difficult  to  conjecture." 

That  the  simplest  kind  of  a  sensual  caress — squeezing  a 
young  woman's  hand  and  whispering  in  her  ear — should  be 
accepted  as  evidence  of  affection  is  naive,  to  say  the  least, 
and  need  not  be  commented  on  after  what  has  just  been  said 
about  the  true  nature  of  affection  and  its  altruistic  test.  Un- 
fortunately many  travellers  who  came  in  contact  with  the 
lower  races  shared  Bourke's  crude  conception  of  the  nature 
of  affection,  and  this  has  done  much  to  mislead  even  expert 
anthropologists  ;  Westermarck,  for  instance,  who  is  induced 
by  such  testimony  to  remark  (358)  that  conjugal  affection  has 
among  certain  uncivilized  peoples  "  reached  a  remarkably 
high  degree  of  development."  Among  those  whom  he  relies 
on  as  witnesses  is  Schweinfurth,  who  says  of  the  man-eating 
African  Niam-Niam  that  "  they  display  an  affection  for  their 
wives  which  is  unparalleled  among  natives  of  so  low  a  grade. 
.  .  .  A  husband  will  spare  no  sacrifice  to  redeem  an  im- 
prisoned wife"  (I.,  472). 


SACRIFICES   OF   CANNIBAL   HUSBANDS 

This  looks  like  strong  evidence,  but  when  we  examine 
the  facts  the  illusion  vanishes.  The  Nubians,  it  appears, 
are  given  to  stealing  the  wives  of  these  Niam-Niam,  to 
induce  them  to  ransom  them  with  ivory.  A  case  occurred 
within  Dr.  Schweinfurth's  own  experience  (II.,  180-187). 
Two  married  women  were  stolen,  and  during  the  night 
"  it  was  touching,  through  the  moaning  of  the  wind,  to 
catch  the  lamentations  of  the  Niam-Niam  men  bewailing 
the  loss  of  their  captured  wives  ;  cannibals  though  they  were, 
they  were  evidently  capable  of  true  conjugal  affection.  The 
Nubians  remained  quite  unaffected  by  any  of  their  cries,  and 
never  for  a  moment  swerved  from  their  purpose  of  recovering 
the  ivory  before  they  surrendered  the  women."  Here  we  see 
what  the  expression  that  the  Niam-Niam  "  spare  no  sacrifice 


212  ROMANTIC    LOVE— AFFECTION 

to  redeem  their  imprisoned  women  "  amounts  to  :  the  Nu- 
bians counted  on  it  that  .they  would  rather  part  with  their 
ivory  than  with  their  wives  !  This,  surely,  involved  no 
"  sacrifice  "  ;  it  was  simply  a  question  of  which  the  husbands 
preferred,  the  useless  ivory  or  the  useful  women — desirable  as 
drudges  and  concubines.  Why  should  buying  back  a  wife  be 
evidence  of  affection  any  more  than  the  buying  of  a  bride, 
which  is  a  general  custom  of  Africans  ?  As  for  their  howling 
over  their  lost  wives,  that  was  natural  enough  ;  they  would 
have  howled  over  lost  cows  too — as  our  children  cry  if  their 
milk  is  taken  away  when  they  are  hungry.  Actions  which 
can  be  interpreted  in  such  sensual  and  selfish  terms  can  never 
be  accepted  as  proof  of  true  affection.  That  the  captured 
wives,  on  their  part,  were  not  troubled  by  conjugal  affection 
is  evident  from  Schweinfurth's  remark  that  they  "  were  per- 
fectly composed  and  apparently  quite  indifferent." 


INCLINATIONS   MISTAKEN    FOK    AFFECTION 

Let  us  take  one  more  case.  There  are  plenty,  of  men  who 
would  like  to  kiss  every  pretty  girl  they  see,  and  no  one  would 
be  so  foolish  as  to  regard  a  kiss  as  proof  of  affection.  Yet 
Lyon  (another  of  the  witnesses  on  whom  Westermarck  re- 
lies) accepts,  with  a  naivete  equalling  Captain  Bourke's, 
the  rubbing  together  of  noses,  which  among  the  Eskimos  is 
an  equivalent  of  our  kissing,  as  a  mark  of  "affection."  In 
the  case  of  unscientific  travellers,  such  a  loose  use  of  words 
may  perhaps  be  pardonable,  but  a  specialist  who  writes  a  his- 
tory of  marriage  should  not  put  the  label  of  "  affection  "  on 
everything  that  comes  into  his  drag-net,  as  Westermarck 
does  (pp.  358-59) ;  a  proceeding  the  less  excusable  because 
he  himself  admits,  a  few  pages  later  (362),  that  affection  is 
chiefly  provoked  by  ' '  intellectual,  emotional,  and  moral  quali- 
ties "  which  certainly  could  not  be  found  among  some  of  the 
races  he  refers  to.  I  have  investigated  a  number  of  the  al- 
leged cases  of  conjugal  "affection"  in  books  of  travel,  and 
found  invariably  that  some  manifestation  of  sensual  attach- 
ment was  recklessly  accepted  as  an  indication  of  "  affection." 


SELFISH    LIKING    AND    ATTACHMENT         213 

In  part,  it  is  true,  the  English  language  is  to  be  blamed  for 
this  state  of  affairs.  The  word  affection  has  been  used  to 
mean  almost  any  disposition  of  the  mind,  including  passion, 
lust,  animosity,  and  a  morbid  state.  But  in  good  modern 
usage  it  means  or  implies  an  altruistic  feeling  of  devotion 
which  urges  us  to  seek  the  welfare  of  another  even  at  the  ex- 
pense of  our  own.  We  call  a  mother  affectionate  because  she 
willingly  and  eagerly  sacrifices  herself  for  her  child,  toils  for 
it,  loses  sleep  and  food  and  health  for  its  sake.  If  she 
merely  cared  for  it  [note  the  subtle  double  sense  of  "  car- 
ing for  "]  because  it  is  pretty  and  amusing,  we  might  con- 
cede that  she  "liked"  it,  was  "attached"  to  it,  or  "fond" 
of  it ;  but  it  would  be  incorrect  to  speak  of  affection.  Lik- 
ing, attachment,  and  fondness  differ  from  affection  not  only 
in  degree  but  in  kind  ;  they  are  selfish,  while  affection  is  un- 
selfish ;  they  occur  among  savages,  while  affection  is  peculiar 
to  civilized  persons  and  perhaps  some  animals. 


SELFISH    LIKING    AND   ATTACHMENT 

Liking  is  the  weakest  kind  of  inclination  toward  another. 
It  "never  has  the  intensity  of  love."  To  say  that  I  like 
a  man  is  to  indicate  merely  that  he  pleases  me,  gives  me 
selfish  pleasure — in  some  way  or  other.  A  man  may  say 
of  a  girl  who  pleases  him  by  her  looks,  wit,  vivacity,  or 
sympathy,  "  I  like  her,"  though  he  may  have  known  her 
only  a  few  minutes ;  while  a  girl  who  will  rather  die  than 
give  any  sign  of  affection,  may  be  quite  willing  to  confess 
that  she  likes  him,  knowing  that  the  latter  means  infinitely 
less  and  does  not  betray  her  ;  that  is,  it  merely  indicates 
that  he  pleases  her  and  not  that  she  is  particularly  anxious 
to  please  him,  as  she  would  be  if  she  loved  him.  Girls 
"like"  candy,  too,  because  it  gives  them  pleasure,  and  can- 
nibals may  like  missionaries  without  having  the  least  affec- 
tion for  them. 

Attachment  is  stranger  than  liking,  but  it  also  springs  from 
selfish  interests  and  habits.  It  is  apt  to  be  similar  to  that 
gratitude  which  is  "a  lively  sense  of  favors  to  come."  Mrs. 


214  ROMANTIC    LOVE— AFFECTION 

Bishop  (Isabella  Bird)  eloquently  describes  (II.,  135-136)  the 
attachment  to  her  of  a  Persian  horse,  and  incidentally  suggests 
the  philosophy  of  the  matter  in  one  sentence  :  "To  him  I  am 
an  embodiment  of  melons,  cucumbers,  grapes,  pears,  peaches, 
biscuits,  and  sugar,  with  a  good  deal  of  petting  and  ear-rub- 
bing thrown  in."  Cases  of  attachment  between  husband  and 
wife  no  doubt  abound  among  savages,  even  when  the  man  is 
usually  contemptuous  and  rude  in  his  treatment  01*  the  wife. 
The  Niam-Niam  husbands  of  Schweinf  urth  did  not,  as  we  saw, 
give  an y  evidence  of  unselfish  affection,  but  they  were  doubt- 
less attached  to  their  wives,  for  obvious  reasons.  As  for  the 
women  among  the  lower  races,  they  are  apt,  like  dogs,  to  cling 
to  their  master,  no  matter  how  much  he  may  kick  them  about. 
They  get  from  him  food  and  shelter,  and  blind  habit  does  the 
rest  to  attach  them  to  his  hearth.  What  habit  and  associa- 
tion can  do  is  shown  in  the  ease  with  which  {<  happy  families" 
of  hostile  animals  can  be  reared.  But  the  beasts  of  prey  must 
be  well  fed  ;  a  day  or  two  of  fasting  would  result  in  the  lamb 
lying  down  inside  the  lion.  The  essential  selfishness  of  at- 
tachment is  shown  also  in  the  way  a  man  becomes  attached  to 
his  pipe  or  his  home,  etc.  At  the  same  time,  personal  at- 
tachment may  prove  the  entering  wedge  of  something  higher. 
"  The  passing  attachments  of  young  people  are  seldom  enti- 
tled to  serious  notice  ;  although  sometimes  they  may  ripen 
by  long  intercourse  into  a  laudable  and  steady  affection " 
(Crabb). 

FOOLISH   FONDNESS 

The  word  fondness  is  sometimes  used  in  the  sense  of  a  ten- 
der, loving  disposition  ;  yet  there  is  nearly  always  an  implica- 
tion of  silly  extravagance  or  unseemly  demonstrativeness,  and 
in  the  most  accurate  usage  it  means  a  foolish,  doting  indul- 
gence, without  discriminating  intelligence,  or  even  common- 
sense.  As  Crabb  puts  it  in  his  English  Synonyms,  "A  fond 
parent  does  not  rise  above  a  fool."  Everybody  knows  fathers 
and  mothers  whose  fondness  induces  them  to  indulge  all  the 
appetites,  desires,  and  whims  of  their  children,  thereby  ruining 
their  health  and  temper,  making  them  greedy  and  selfish,  and 


FOOLISH    FONDNESS  215 

laying  the  foundation  for  a  wretched  life  for  the  children  them- 
selves and  all  who  are  unfortunate  enough  to  come  into  con- 
tact with  them.  This  irrational  fondness  is  what  travellers 
and  anthropologists  have  so  often  mistaken  for  genuine  affec- 
tion in  the  cases  of  savages  and  barbarians  who  were  found  to 
be  fondling  their  babes,  doting  upon  them,  playing  with  them, 
and  refusing  to  punish  them  for  any  naughtiness.  But  it  is 
far  from  being  affection,  because  it  is  not  only  foolish,  but 
selfish.  To  some  of  my  readers  this  may  seem  a  strange  accu- 
sation, but  it  is  a  fact  recognized  in  the  best  literary  usage, 
for,  as  Crabb  remarks,  "a  person  is  fond,  who  caresses  an  ob- 
ject or  makes  it  a  source  of  pleasure  to  himself."  Savages 
fondle  their  children  because  in  doing  so  they  please  and 
amuse  themselves.  Their  pranks  entertain  the  fathers,  and 
as  for  the  mothers,  nature  (natural  selection)  has  implanted 
in  them  an  unconscious  instinct  of  race  preservation  which, 
recognizing  the  selfishness  of  primitive  man,  has  brought  it 
about  that  it  gives  the  mother  a  special  pleasure  to  suckle  and 
fondle  her  infant.  The  essential  selfishness  of  this  fondness 
is  revealed  when  there  is  a  conflict  between  the  mother's 
comfort  and  the  child's  welfare.  The  horrible  prevalence 
among  many  of  the  lower  races,  of  infanticide — merely  to  save 
trouble — of  which  many  examples  are  given  in  various  parts 
of  this  book  (see  index) — shows  not  only  how  selfish,  but  how 
shallow,  fondness  is.  There  are  thousands  of  mothers  in  our 
modern  cities  who  have  not  risen  above  this  condition.  An 
Italian,  Ferriani,  has  written  a  book  on  degenerate  mothers 
(Madri  Snaturate),  and  I  have  in  my  note-books  a  state- 
ment of  the  London  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Children  referring  to  a  record  of  2,141  cases  of  proved  cruelty 
in  the  one  month  of  August,  1898 ;  which  would  make  at 
least  25,000  cases  a  year,  in  one  city  alone,  or  possibly  double 
that  number,  for  many  cases  are  never  found  out,  or  else 
consist  of  mental  torture  which  is  worse  than  bodily  maltreat- 
ment. Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  all,  or  nearly  all,  of 
these  mothers  were  fond  of  their  babies — i.e.,  fondled  them 
at  first,  till  the  animal  instinct  implanted  in  them  was  over- 
come by  the  desire  for  personal  comfort. 


216  ROMANTIC    LOVE— AFFECTION 

This  animal  instinct,  given  to  them  by  nature,  is  no  virtue, 
for  it  is  unconscious.  A  tigress  has  it,  but  we  do  not  call  it  a 
virtue  in  her  any  more  than  we  call  her  cruelty  to  her  prey  a 
vice  ;  she  is  acting  unconsciously  in  either  case,  knowing  no 
distinction  between  good  and  evil.  Fondness,  in  a  word,  is 
not  an  ethical  virtue.  In  addition  to  all  its  enumerated  short- 
comings, it  is,  moreover,  transient.  A  dog  mother  will  care 
for  her  young  for  a  few  months  with  the  watchfulness  and 
temporary  ferocity  implanted  in  her  by  natural  selection,  but 
after  that  she  will  abandon  them  and  recognize  them  no  more 
as  her  own.  Sometimes  this  instinctive  fondness  ceases  with 
startling  rapidity.  I  remember  once  in  a  California  yard,  how 
a  hen  flew  in  my  face  angrily  because  I  had  frightened  her 
chicks.  A  few  days  later  she  deserted  them,  before  they  were 
really  quite  old  enough  to  take  care  of  themselves,  and  all  my 
efforts  to  make  her  return  and  let  them  sleep  again  under  her 
warm  feathers  failed.  She  even  pecked  at  them  viciously. 
Some  of  the  lower  savages  similarly  abandon  their  young  as 
soon  as  they  are  able  to  get  along,  while  those  who  care  for 
them  longer,  do  so  not  from  affection,  but  because  sons  are 
useful  assistants  in  hunting  and  fighting,  and  daughters  can 
be  sold  or  traded  off  for  new  wives.  That  they  do  not  keep 
them  from  affection  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  in  all  cases 
where  any  selfish  advantage  can  be  gained  they  marry  them  off 
without  reference  to  their  wishes  or  chances  of  happiness.1 


UNSELFISH   AFFECTION 

While  the  fondness  of  savages,  which  has  been  so  often  mis- 
taken for  affection,  is  thus  seen  to  be  foolish,  unconscious, 
selfish,  shallow,  and  transient,  true  affection  is  rational,  con- 
scious, unselfish,  deep,  and  enduring.  Being  rational,  it  looks 
not  to  the  enjoyment  or  comfort  of  the  moment,  but  to  future 

1  Willoughby,  in  his  article  on  Washington  Indians,  recognizes  the  predom- 
inance of  the  "animal  instinct  "  in  the  parental  fondness  of  savages,  and  so  does 
Hutchinson  (I. ,  119)  ;  but  both  erroneously  use  the  word  "affection,"  though 
Hutchinson  reveals  his  own  misuse  of  it  when  he  writes  that  "  the  savage  knows 
little  of  the  higher  affection  subsequently  developed,  which  has  a  worthier  pur- 
pose than  merely  to  disport  itself  in  ohe  mirth  of  childhood  and  at  all  hazards 
to  avoid  the  annoyance  of  seeing  its  tears."  He  comprehends  that  the  savage 


UNSELFISH   AFFECTION  217 

and  enduring  welfare,  and  therefore  does  not  hesitate  to  pun- 
ish folly  or  misdeeds  in  order  to  avert  future  illness  or  mis- 
fortune. Instead  of  being  a  mere  instinctive  impulse,  liable  to 
cease  at  any  moment,  like  that  of  the  California  hen  referred 
to,  it  is  a  conscious  altruism,  never  faltering  in  its  ethical  sense 
of  duty,  utterly  incapable  of  sacrificing  another's  comfort  or 
well-being  to  its  own.  While  fondness  is  found  coexisting 
with  cruelty  and  even  with  infanticide  and  cannibalism  (as  in 
those  Australian  mothers,  who  feed  their  children  well  and 
carry  them  when  tired,  but  when  a  real  test  of  altruism  comes 
— during  a  famine — kill  and  eat  them,1  just  as  the  men  do 
their  wives  when  they  cease  to  be  sensually  attractive),  affec- 
tion is  horrified  at  the  mere  suggestion  of  such  a  thing.  No 
man  into  whose  love  affection  enters  as  an  ingredient  would 
ever  injure  his  beloved  merely  to  gratify  himself.  Crabb  is 
utterly  wrong  when  he  writes  that  "  love  is  more  selfish  in  its 
nature  than  friendship  ;  in  indulging  another  it  seeks  its  own, 
and  when  this  is  not  to  be  obtained,  it  will  change  into  the 
contrary  passion  of  hatred."  This  is  a  definition  of  lust,  not 
of  love — a  definition  of  the  passion  as  known  to  the  Greek 
Euripides,  of  whose  lovers  Benecke  says  (53)  : 

"  If,  or  as  soon  as,  they  fail  in  achieving  the  gratification 
of  their  sensual  desires,  their  ( love '  immediately  turns  to 
hate.  The  idea  of  devotion  or  self-sacrifice  for  the  good  of 
the  beloved  person,  as  distinct  from  one's  own,  is  absolutely 
unknown.  '  Love  is  irresistible/  they  say,  and,  in  obedience 
to  its  commands,  they  set  down  to  reckon  how  they  can  satisfy 
themselves,  at  no  matter  what  cost  to  the  objects  of  their  pas- 
sion." 

How  different  this  unaffectionate  ' '  love  "  from  the  love  of 
which  our  poets  sing !  Shakspere  knew  that  absorbing  af- 
fection is  an  ingredient  of  love  :  Beatrice  loves  Benedick 
lt  with  an  enraged  affection,"  which  is  "past  the  infinite  of  the 

"gratifies  himself11  by  humoring  the  whims  "of  his  children."  Dr.  Abel,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  has  written  an  interesting  pamphlet  on  the  words  used  in 
Latin,  Hebrew,  English,  and  Russian  to  designate  the  different  kinds  and  de- 
grees of  what  is  vaguely  called  love,  while  otherwise  making  clear  the  differences 
between  liking,  attachment,  fondness,  and  affection,  does  not  sufficiently  empha- 
size the  most  important  distinction  between  them — the  selfishness  of  the  first 
three  and  the  unselfish  nature  of  affection. 
1  Stanford- Wallace,  Australasia,  89. 


218          ROMANTIC    LOVE— MENTAL   PURITY 

night."  Rosalind  does  not  know  how  many  fathom  deep  she 
is  in  love  :  "It  cannot  be  sounded  ;  my  affection  hath  an 
unknown  bottom,  like  the  Bay  of  Portugal."  Dr.  Abel  has 
truly  said  that 

"  aifection  is  love  tested  and  purified  in  the  fire  of  the  in- 
tellect. It  appears  when,  after  the  veil  of  fancy  has  dropped, 
a  beloved  one  is  seen  in  the  natural  beauty  with  various 
human  limitations,  and  is  still  found  worthy  of  the  warmest 
regards.  It  comes  slowly,  but  it  endures  ;  gives  more  than  it 
takes  and  has  a  tinge  of  tender  gratitude  for  a  thousand  kind 
actions  and  for  the  bestowal  of  enduring  happiness.  Accord- 
ing to  English  ideas,  a  deep  aifection,  through  whose  clear 
mirror  the  gold  of  the  old  love  shimmers  visibly,  should  be 
the  fulfilment  of  marriage." 

Of  romantic  love  affection  obviously  could  not  become  an 
ingredient  till  minds  were  cultured,  women  esteemed,  men 
made  altruistic,  and  opportunities  were  given  for  youths 
and  maidens  to  become  acquainted  with  each  other's  minds 
and  characters  before  marriage ;  as  Dr.  Abel  says,  affection 
"comes  slowly — but  it  endures."  The  love  of  which  affec- 
tion forms  an  ingredient  can  never  change  to  hatred,  can 
never  have  any  murderous  impulses,  as  Schure  and  Goethe 
believed.  It  survives  time  and  sensual  charms,  as  Shakspere 
knew  : 

Love  is  not  love 
Which  alters  when  it  alteration  finds. 

Love's  not  time's  fool,  though  rosy  lips  and  cheeks 
Within  his  bending  sickle's  compass  come ; 
Love  alters  not  with  his  brief  hours  and  weeks, 
But  bears  it  out  ev'n  to  the  edge  of  doom : — 

If  this  be  error,  and  upon  me  proved  ; 
I  never  writ  nor  no  man  ever  loved. 


XIII.   MENTAL  PURITY 

Romantic  love  has  worked  two  astounding  miracles.  We 
have  seen  how,  with  the  aid  of  five  of  its  ingredients — sym- 
pathy, adoration,  gallantry,  self-sacrifice,  and  affection — it  has 


GERMAN   TESTIMONY  219 

overthrown  the  Goliath  of  selfishness.  We  shall  now  see  how 
it  has  overcome  another  formidable  foe  of  civilization — sen- 
sualism— by  means  of  two  other  modern  ingredients,  one  of 
which  I  will  call  mental  purity  (to  distinguish  it  from  bodily 
purity  or  chastity)  and  the  other  esthetic  admiration  of  per- 
sonal beauty. 

GERMAN   TESTIMONY 

Modern  German  literature  contains  many  sincere  tributes, 
in  prose  and  verse,  to  the  purity  and  nobility  of  true  love 
and  its  refining  influence.  The  psychologist  Horwicz  refers 
briefly  (38)  to  the  way  in  which  "  love,  growing  up  as  a  mighty 
passion  from  the  substratum  of  sexual  life,  has,  under  the  re- 
pressing influence  of  centuries  of  habits  and  customs,  taken 
on  an  entirely  new,  super  sensual,  ethereal  character,  so  that 
to  a  lover  every  thought  of  naturalia  seems  indelicate  and 
improper/'  "  I  feel  it  deeply  that  love  must  ennoble,  not 
crush  me,"  wrote  the  poet  Korner  ;  and  again,  "  Your  sweet 
name  was  my  talisman,  which  led  me  undefiled  through 
youth's  wild  storms,  amid  the  corruption  of  the  times,  and 
protected  my  inner  sanctum."  "  0  God  !  "  wrote  Beethoven, 
"  let  me  at  last  find  her  who  is  destined  to  be  mine,  and  who 
shall  strengthen  me  in  virtue."  According  to  Dr.  Abel, 
while  love  longs  ardently  to  possess  the  beloved,  to  enjoy  her 
presence  and  sympathy,  it  has  also  a  more  or  less  prominent 
mental  trait  which  ennobles  the  passion  and  places  it  at  the 
service  of  the  ideal  of  its  fancy.  It  is  accompanied  by  an 
enthusiasm  for  the  good  and  the  beautiful  in  general,  which 
comes  to  most  people  only  during  the  brief  period  of  love. 
"It  is  a  temporary  self -exaltation,  purifying  the  desires  and 
urging  the  lover  to  generous  deeds." 

Des  hochste  Gliick  hat  keine  Lieder, 
Der  Liebe  Lust  ist  still  und  mild  ; 
Bin  Kuss,  ein  Blicken  bin  und  wieder, 
Und  alle  Sehnsucht  ist  gcstillt.  —  Geibel. 

Schiller  defined  love  as  an  eager  "desire  for  another's 
happiness."  "  Love,"  he  adds,  "is  the  most  beautiful 


220          ROMANTIC   LOVE— MENTAL   PURITY 

phenomenon  in  all  animated  nature,  the  mightiest  magnet  in 
the  spiritual  world,  the  source  of  veneration  and  the  sub- 
limest  virtues."  Even  Goethe  had  moments  when  he  ap- 
preciated the  purity  of  love,  and  he  confutes  his  own  coarse 
conception  that  was  referred  to  in  the  last  section  when  lie 
makes  Werther  write  :  "  She  is  sacred  to  me.  All  desire  is 
silent  in  her  presence." 1 

The  French  Edward  Schure  exclaims,  in  his  History  of 
German  Song: 

"What  surprises  us  foreigners  in  the  poems  of  this  people 
is  the  unbounded  faith  in  love,  as  the  supreme  power  in  the 
world,  as  the  most  beautiful  and  divine  thing  on  earth,  .  .  . 
the  first  and  last  word  of  creation,  its  only  principle  of  life, 
because  it  alone  can  urge  us  to  complete  self-surrender/' 

Schure's  intimation  that  this  respect  for  love  is  peculiar  to  the 
Germans  is,  of  course,  absurd,  for  it  is  found  in  the  modern 
literature  of  all  civilized  countries  of  Europe  and  America ; 
as  for  instance  in  Michael  Angelo's 

The  might  of  one  fair  face  sublimes  my  love, 
For  it  hath  weaned  my  heart  from  low  desires. 


ENGLISH   TESTIMONY 

English  literature,  particularly,  has  been  saturated  with 
this  sentiment  for  several  centuries.  Love  is  "  all  purity," 
according  to  Shakspere's  Silvius.  Schlegel  remarked  that  by 
the  manner  in  which  Shakspere  handled  the  story  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  it  has  become  "  a  glorious  song  of  praise  on  that 
inexpressible  feeling  which  ennobles  the  soul  and  gives  to  it 
its  highest  sublimity,  and  which  elevates  even  the  senses  them- 
selves into  soul ;" — which  reminds  one  of  Emerson's  expres- 
sion that  the  body  is  "  ensouled "  through  love.  Steele 
declared  that  "  Love  is  a  passion  of  the  mind  (perhaps  the 
noblest),  which  was  planted  in  it  by  the  same  hand  that  created 
it ; "  and'  of  Lady  Elizabeth  Hastings  he  wrote  that  "  to  love 
her  was  a  liberal  education."  In  Steel's  Lover  (No.  5)  we 

'See  also  the  reference  to  the  "peculiar  delicacy  "  of  his  relations  to  Lili,  in 
Eckermann,  III.,  March  5,  1830. 


ENGLISH    TESTIMONY  221 

read  :  "  During  this  emotion  I  am  highly  elated  in  my  Being, 
and  my  every  sentiment  improved  by  the  effects  of  that  Pas- 
sion. ...  I  am  more  and  more  convinced  that  this 
Passion  is  in  lowest  minds  the  strongest  Incentive  that  can 
move  the  Soul  of  Man  to  laudable  Accomplishments."  And 
in  No.  29  :  "  Nothing  can  mend  the  Heart  better  than  an 
honorable  Love,  except  Religion."  Thomas  Otway  sang  : 

O  woman !  lovely  woman !     Nature  made  thee 
To  temper  man :  we  had  been  brutes  without  you. 
There's  in  you  all  that  we  believe  of  heaven, 
Amazing  brightness,  purity,  and  truth, 
Eternal  joy,  and  everlasting  love. 

"Love  taught  him  shame,"  said  Dryden,  and  Spenser 
wrote  a  Hymn  in  Honor  of  Love,  in  which  he  declared  that 

Such  is  the  power  of  that  sweet  passion 
That  it  all  sordid  baseness  doth  expel, 

And  the  refined  mind  doth  newly  fashion 
Unto  a  fairer  form,  which  now  doth  dwell 
In  his  high  thought,  that  would  itself  excel. 

Leigh  Hunt  wrote:  "My  love  has  made  me  better  and 
more  desirous  of  improvement  than  I  have  been." 

Love,  indeed,  is  light  from  heaven ; 

A  spark  of  that  immortal  fire, 
With  angels  shared,  by  Allah  given, 

To  lift  from  earth  our  low  desire. 
Devotion  wafts  the  mind  above, 
But  heaven  itself  descends  in  love. — Byron. 

Why  should  we  kill  the  best  of  passions,  love  ? 

It  aids  the  hero,  bids  ambition  rise 

To  nobler  heights,  inspires  immortal  deeds, 

Ev'n  softens  brutes,  and  adds  a  grace  to  virtue. —  Thomson. 

Dr.  Beddoe,  author  of  the  Browning  Cyclopedia,  declares 
that  "  the  passion  of  love,  throughout  Mr.  Browning's  works, 
is  treated  as  the  most  sacred  thing  in  the  human  soul." 
How  Browning  himself  loved  we  know  from  one  of  his  wife's 


222          ROMANTIC    LOVE— MENTAL    PURITY 

letters,  in  which  she  relates  how  she  tried  to  discourage  his 
advances  : 

"  I  showed  him  how  he  was  throwing  away  into  the  ashes 
his  best  affections — how  the  common  gifts  of  youth  and 
cheerfulness  were  behind  me — how  I  had  not  strength,  even 
of  heart,  for  the  ordinary  duties  of  life — everything  I  told 
him  and  showed  him.  '  Look  at  this — and  this — and  this/ 
throwing  down  all  my  disadvantages.  To  which  he  did  not 
answer  by  a  single  compliment,  but  simply  that  he  had  not 
then  to  choose,  and  that  I  might  be  right  or  he  might  be 
right,  he  was  not  there  to  decide  ;  but  that  he  loved  me  and 
should  to  his  last  hour.  He  said  that  the  freshness  of  youth 
had  passed  with  him  also,  and  that  he  had  studied  the  world 
out  of  books  and  seen  many  women,  yet  had  never  loved  one 
until  he  had  seen  me.  That  he  knew  himself,  and  knew 
that,  if  ever  so  repulsed,  he  should  love  me  to  his  last  hour — 
it  should  be  first  and  last." 

No  poet  understood  better  than  Tennyson  that  purity  is  an 
ingredient  of  love : 

For  indeed  I  know 

Of  no  more  subtle  master  under  heaven 
Than  is  the  maiden  passion  for  a  maid, 
Not  only  to  keep  down  the  base  in  man, 
But  teach  high  thoughts  and  amiable  words, 
And  courtliness,  and  the  desire  ef  fame 
And  love  of  truth,  and  all  that  makes  a  man. 


MAIDEN    FANCIES 

Bryan  Waller  Proctor  fell  in  love  when  he  was  only  five 
years  old  :  "  My  love/5  he  wrote  afterward,  "  had  the  fire  of 
passion,  but  not  the  clay  which  drags  it  downward  ;  it  par- 
took of  the  innocence  of  my  years,  while  it  etherealized  me." 

Such  ethereal  love  too  is  the  prerogative  of  a  young  maiden, 
whose  imagination  is  immaculate,  ignorant  of  impurity. 

Her  feelings  have  the  fragrancy, 
The  freshness  of  young  flowers. 

No,  no,  the  utmost  share 

Of  my  desire  shall  be, 
Only  to  kiss  that  air 

That  lately  kissed  thee. 


PATHOLOGIC    LOVE  223 

In  high  school,  when  sentimental  impulses  first  manifest 
themselves  in  a  girl,  she  is  more  likely  than  not  to  transfer 
them  to  a  girl.  Her  feelings,  in  these  cases,  are  not  merely 
those  of  a  warm  friendship,  but  they  resemble  the  passionate, 
self-sacrificing  attitude  of  romantic  love.  New  York  school- 
girls have  a  special  slang  phrase  for  this  kind  of  love — they 
call  it  a  "crush,"  to  distinguish  it  from  a  "mash/*  which 
refers  to  an  impression  made  on  a  man.  A  girl  of  seventeen 
told  me  one  day  how  madly  she  was  in  love  with  another  girl 
whose  seat  was  near  hers  ;  how  she  brought  her  flowers, 
wiped  her  pens,  took  care  of  her  desk  ;  "  but  I  don't  believe 
she  cares  for  me  at  all,"  she  added,  sadly. 


PATHOLOGIC   LOVE 

Such  love  is  usually  as  innocent  as  a  butterfly's  flirtation 
with  a  flower.1  It  has  a  pathologic  phase,  in  some  cases,  which 
need  not  be  discussed  here.  But  I  wish  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  even  in  abnormal  states  modern  love  pre- 
serves its  purity.  The  most  eminent  authority  on  mental 
pathology,  Professor  Kraif t-Ebing,  says,  concerning  eroto- 
mania :  "  The  kernel  of  the  whole  matter  is  the  delusion  of 
being  singled  out  and  loved  by  a  person  of  the  other  sex,  who 
regularly  belongs  to  a  higher  social  class.  And  it  should  be 
noted  that  the  love  felt  by  the  patient  toward  this  person  is 
a  romantic,  ecstatic,  but  entirely  '  Platonic '  affection."  I 
have  among  my  notes  a  remarkable  case,  relating  to  that  most 
awful  of  diseases  that  can  befall  a  woman — nymphomania.2 
The  patient  relates  :  "  I  have  also  noticed  that  when  my  af- 
fections are  aroused,  they  counteract  animal  passion.  I  could 

1  Renan,  in  one  of  his  short  stories,  describes  a  girl,  Emma  Kosilis,  whose 
love,  at  sixteen,  is  as  innocent  as  it  is  unconscious,  and  who  is  unable  to  distin- 
guish it  from  piety.  Regarding  the  unconscious  purity  of  woman's  love  see 
Moll,  3,  and  Paget,  Clinical  Lectures,  which  discuss  the  loss  in  women  of  in- 
stinctive sexual  knowledge.  Cf.  Ribot,  251,  and  Moreau,  Psychologic  Morbicle, 
284-278.  Ribot  is  sceptical,  because  the  ultimate  goal  is  the  possession  of  the 
beloved.  But  that  has  nothing  to  do  wir.h  the  question,  for  what  he  refers  to  is 
unconscious  and  instinctive.  Here  we  are  considering  love  as  a  conscious  feel- 
ing and  ideal,  and  as  such  it  is  as  spotless  and  sinless  as  the  most  confirmed 
asc'-tic  could  wish  it. 

'The  case  is  described  in  the  Medical  Times,  April  18,  1885. 


224          ROMANTIC    LOVE— MENTAL   PURITY 

never  love  a  man  because  he  was  a  man.  My  tendency  is  to 
worship  the  good  I  find  in  friends.  I  feel  just  the  same  to- 
ward those  of  my  own  sex.  If  they  show  any  regard  for  me, 
the  touch  of  a  hand  has  power  to  take  away  all  morbid  feel- 
ing.w 

A   MODERN   SENTIMENT 

There  are  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  love.  To  those  who 
have  known  only  the  primitive  (sensual)  sort,  the  conditions 
described  in  the  foregoing  pages  will  seem  strange  and  fan- 
tastic if  not  fictitious — that  is,  the  products  of  the  writers' 
imaginations.  Fantastic  they  are,  no  doubt,  and  romantic, 
but  that  they  are  real  I  can  vouch  for  by  my  own  experience 
whenever  I  was  in  love,  which  happened  several  times. 
When  I  was  a  youth  of  seventeen  I  fell  in  love  with  a  beauti- 
ful, black-eyed  young  woman,  a  Spanish-American  of  Cali- 
fornian  stock.  She  was  married,  and  I  am  afraid  she  was 
amused  at  my  mad  infatuation.  Did  I  try  to  flirt  with  her  ? 
A  smile,  a  glance  of  her  eyes,  was  to  me  the  seventh  heaven 
beyond  which  there  could  be  no  other.  I  would  not  have 
dared  to  touch  her  hand,  and  the  thought  of  kissing  her  was 
as  much  beyond  my  wildest  flights  of  fancy  as  if  she  had  been 
a  real  goddess.  To  me  she  was  divine,  utterly  unapproach- 
able by  mortal.  Every  day  I  used  to  sit  in  a  lonely  spot  of 
the  forest  and  weep  ;  and  when  she  went  away  I  felt  as  if 
the  sun  had  gone  out  and  all  the  world  were  plunged  into 
eternal  darkness. 

Such  is  romantic  love — a  supersensual  feeling  of  crystalline 
purity  from  which  all  gross  matter  has  been  distilled.  But 
'  the  love  that  includes  this  ingredient  is  a  modern  sentiment, 
less  than  a  thousand  years  old,  and  not  to  be  found  among 
savages,  barbarians,  or  Orientals.  To  them,  as  the  perusal 
of  past  and  later  chapters  must  convince  the  reader,  it  is  in- 
conceivable that  a  woman  should  serve  any  other  than  sensual 
and  utilitarian  purposes.  The  whole  story  is  told  in  what 
Dodge  says  of  the  Indians,  who,  "animal-like,  approach  a 
woman  only  to  make  love  to  her"  ;  and  of  the  squaws  who  do 
not  dare  even  go  with  a  beau  to  a  dance,  or  go  a  short  dis- 


PERSIANS,  TURKS,  AND    HINDOOS  225 

tance  from  camp,  without  taking  precautions  against  rape — 
precautions  without  which  they  "  would  not  be  safe  for  an 
instant "  (210,  213). 


PERSIANS,    TURKS,    AND   HINDOOS 

We  shall  read  later  on  of  the  obscene  talk  and  sights  that 
poison  the  minds  of  boys  and  girls  among  Indians,  Polyne- 
sians, etc.,  from  their  infancy  ;  in  which  respect  Orientals  are 
not  much  better  than  Hurons  and  Botocudos.  "  The  Persian 
child, "  writes  Mrs.  Bishop  (I.,  218),  "from  infancy  is  alto- 
gether interested  in  the  topics  of  adults  ;  and  as  the  conver- 
sation of  both  sexes  is  said  by  those  who  know  them  best  to  be 
without  reticence  or  modesty,  the  purity  which  is  one  of  the 
greatest  charms  of  childhood  is  absolutely  unknown."  Of 
the  Turks  (at  Bagdad)  Ida  Pfeiffer  writes  (L.  J.  R.  W., 
202-203)  that  she  found  it 

"very  painful  to  notice  the  tone  of  the  conversation  that  goes 
on  in  these  harems  and  in  the  baths.  Nothing  can  exceed 
the  demureness  of  the  women  in  public  ;  but  when  they  come 
together  in  these  places,  they  indemnify  themselves  thor- 
oughly for  the  restraint.  While  they  were  busy  with  their 
pipes  and  coffee,  I  took  the  opportunity  to  take  a  glance  into 
the  neighboring  apartments,  and  in  a  few  minutes  I  saw 
enough  to  fill  me  at  once  with  disgust  and  compassion  for 
these  poor  creatures,  whom  idleness  and  ignorance  have  de- 
graded almost  below  the  level  of  humanity.  A  visit  to  the 
women's  baths  left  a  no  less  melancholy  impression.  There 
were  children  of  both  sexes — girls,  women,  and  elderly  ma- 
trons. The  poor  children  !  how  should  they  in  after  life  un- 
derstand what  is  meant  by  modesty  and  purity,  when  they 
are  accustomed  from  their  infancy  to  witness  such  scenes, 
and  listen  to  such  conversation  ?  " 

These  Orientals  are  too  coarse-fibred  to  appreciate  the  spot- 
less, peach-down  purity  which  in  our  ideal  is  a  maiden's  su- 
preme charm.  They  do  not  care  to  prolong,  even  for  a  year 
what  to  us  seems  the  sweetest,  loveliest  period  of  life,  the 
time  of  artless,  innocent  maidenhood.  They  cannot  admire  a 
rose  for  its  fragrant  beauty,  but  must  needs  regard  it  as  a  tiling 


226          ROMANTIC   LOVE— MENTAL   PURITY 

to  be  picked  at  once  and  used  to  gratify  their  appetite.  Nay, 
they  cannot  even  wait  till  it  is  a  full-blown  rose,  but  must 
destroy  the  lovely  bud.  The  "civilized"  Hindoos,  who  are 
allowed  legally  to  sacrifice  girls  to  their  lusts  before  the  poor 
victims  have  reached  the  age  of  puberty,  are  really  on  a  level 
with  the  African  savages  who  indulge  in  the  same  practice. 
An  unsophisticated  reader  of  Kalidasa  might  find  in  the 
King's  comparison  of  Sakuntala  to  "  a  flower  that  no  one  has 
smelt,  a  sprig  that  no  one  has  plucked,  a  pearl  that  has  not 
yet  been  pierced,"  a  recognition  of  the  charm  of  maiden 
purity.  But  there  is  a  world- wide  difference  between  this 
and  the  modern  sentiment.  The  King's  attitude,  as  the  con- 
text shows,  is  simply  that  of  an  epicure  who  prefers  his  oys- 
ters fresh.  The  modern  sentiment  is  embodied  in  Heine's 
exquisite  lines : 

DU  BIST  WIB  BINE  BLUME. 

E'en  as  a  lovely  flower 

So  fair,  so  pure,  thou  art  ; 
I  gaze  on  thee  and  sadness 

Comes  stealing  o'er  my  heart. 

My  hands  I  fain  had  folded 

Upon  thy  soft  brown  hair, 
Praying  that  God  may  keep  thee 

So  lovely,  pure,  and  fair. 

—  Trans,  of  Kate  Freiligraih  Kroeker. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  this  intensely  modern  poem  should 
have  been  set  to  music — the  most  modern  of  all  the  arts — 
more  frequently  than  any  other  verses  ever  written.  To  Ori- 
entals, to  savages,  to  Greeks,  it  would  be  incomprehensible — 
as  incomprehensible  as  Ruskin's  "  there  is  no  true  conqueror 
of  lust  but  love,"  or  Tennyson's 

'Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all. 

To  them  the  love  between  men  and  women  seems  not  a  pu- 
rifying, ennobling  emotion,  a  stimulus  to  self-improvement 
and  an  impulse  to  do  generous,  unselfish  deeds,  but  a  mere 
animal  passion,  low  and  degrading. 


LOVE    DESPISED   IN  JAPAN   AND   CHINA        227 


LOVE   DESPISED   IN   JAPAN  AND  CHINA 

The  Japanese  have  a  little  more  regard  for  women  than 
most  Orientals,  yet  by  them,  too,  love  is  regarded  as  a  low 
passion — as,  in  fact,  identical  with  lust.  It  is  not  considered 
respectable  for  young  folks  to  arrange  their  own  marriages  on 
a  basis  of  love. 

"  Among  the  lower  classes,  indeed,"  says  Kiichler,1  "  such 
direct  unions  are  not  unfrequent ;  but  they  are  held  in  con- 
tempt, and  are  known  as  yago  (meeting  on  a  moor),  a  term 
of  disrespect,  showing  the  low  opinion  entertained  of  it." 
Professor  Chamberlain  writes,  in  his  Things  Japanese  (285) : 
"  One  love  marriage  we  have  heard  of,  one  in  eighteen  years  ! 
But  then  both  the  young  people  had  been  brought  up  in 
America.  Accordingly  they  took  the  reins  in  their  own 
hands,  to  the  great  scandal  of  all  their  friends  and  rela- 
tions." 

On  another  page  (308)  he  says  :  ( ( According  to  the  Confu- 
cian ethical  code,  which  the  Japanese  adopted,  a  man's  par- 
ents, his  teacher,  and  his  lord  claim  his  life-long  service,  his 
wife  standing  on  an  immeasurably  lower  plane."2  Ball,  in 
his  Things  Chinese  comments  on  the  efforts  made  by  China- 
men to  suppress  love-matches  as  being  immoral ;  and  the 
French  author,  L.  A.  Martin,  says,  in  his  book  on  Chinese 
morals  (171)  : 

"  Chinese  philosophers  know  nothing  of  Platonic  love  ; 
they  speak  of  the  relations  between  men  and  women  with  the 
greatest  reserve,  and  we  must  attribute  this  to  the  low  esteem 
in  which  they  generally  hold  the  fair  sex  ;  in  their  illustra- 
tions of  the  disorders  of  love,  it  is  almost  always  the  woman 
on  whom  the  blame  of  seduction  is  laid." 

1  Trans.  Asiatic  Soc.  of  Japan,  1885,  p.  181. 

2  In  the  Journal  des  Goncovrt*  (V.,  214-215)  a  young  Japanese,  with  character- 
istic topsy-turviness,  comments  on  the  l*  coarseness  "  of  European  ideas  of  love, 
which  he  could  understand  only  in  his  own  coarse  way.     ' l  Vous  dites  a  une 
femme,  je  vous  aime  !     Eh  bien  !     Chez  nous,  c'est  comnie  si  on  disait :  Madame, 
je  vais  coucher  avec  vous.     Tont  ce  que  nous  osons  dire  a  la  dame  qne  nous 
aimons,  c'est  que  nous  envions  pres  d'elle  la  place  des  canards  mandarins.    C'est 
messieurs,  notre  oiseau  d'amour." 


228          ROMANTIC   LOVE— MENTAL   PURITY 


GREEK   SCORN    FOR   WOMAN-LOVE 

The  Greeks  were  in  the  same  boat.  They  did  indeed  distin, 
guish  between  two  kinds  of  love,  the  sensual  and  the  celestial- 
but — as  we  shall  see  in  detail  in  the  special  chapter  devoted  to 
them — they  applied  the  celestial  kind  only  to  friendship  and 
boy-love,  never  to  the  love  between  men  and  women.  That  love 
was  considered  impure  and  degrading,  a  humiliating  affliction 
of  the  mind,  not  for  a  moment  comparable  to  the  friendship 
between  men  or  the  feelings  that  unite  parents  and  children. 
This  is  the  view  taken  in  Plato's  writings,  in  Xenophon's  Sym- 
posium and  everywhere.  In  Plutarch's  Dialogue  on  Love,  writ- 
ten five  hundred  years  after  Plato,  one  of  the  speakers  ventures 
a  faint  protest  against  the  current  notion  that  "  there  is  no 
gust  of  friendship  or  heavenly  ravishment  of  mind/'  in  the  love 
for  women  ;  but  this  is  a  decided  innovation  on  the  traditional 
Greek  view,  which  is  thus  brutally  expressed  by  one  of  the  in- 
terlocutors in  the  same  dialogue :  "  True  love  has  nothing  to  do 
with  women,  and  I  assert  that  you  who  are  passionately  inclined 
toward  women  and  maidens  do  not  love  any  more  than  flies 
love  milk  or  bees  honey,  or  cooks  the  calves  and  birds  whom 
they  fatten  in  the  dark.  .  .  .  The  passion  for  women  con- 
sists at  the  best  in  the  gain  of  sensual  pleasure  and  the  en- 
joyment of  bodily  beauty."  Another  interlocutor  sums  up 
the  Greek  attitude  in  these  words  :  "It  behooves  respectable 
women  neither  to  love  nor  to  be  loved." 

Goethe  had  an  ape^u  of  the  absence  of  purity  in  Greek  love 
when  he  wrote,  in  his  Roman  Elegies  : 

In  der  heroischen  Zeit,  da  Gotter  und  Gottinnen  liebten. 
Folgte  Begierde  dem  Blick,  folgte  Genuss  der  Begier. 


PENETRATIVE   VIRGINITY 

The  change  in  love  from  the  barbarian  and  ancient  attitude 
to  the  modern  conception  of  it  as  a  refining,  purifying  feeling 
is  closely  connected  with  the  growth  of  the  altruistic  ingre- 
dients of  love — sympathy,  gallantry,  self-sacrifice,  affection, 


PENETRATIVE    VIRGINITY  229 

I 

and  especially  adoration.  It  is  one  of  the  points  where  re- 
ligion and  love  meet.  Mariolatry  greatly  affected  men's  atti- 
tude toward  women  in  general,  including  their  notions  about 
love.  There  is  a  curious  passage  in  Burton  worth  citing  here 
(III.,  2): 

"  Christ  himself,  and  the  Virgin  Mary,  had  most  beautiful 
eyes,  as  amiable  eyes  as  any  persons,  saith  Baradius,  that  ever 
lived,  yet  withal  so  modest,  so  chaste,  that  whosoever  looked 
on  them  was  freed  from  that  passion  of  burning  lust,  if  we 
may  believe  Gerson  and  Bonaventure  ;  there  was  no  such  an- 
tidote against  it  as  the  Virgin  Mary's  face." 

Mediaeval  theologians  had  a  special  name  for  this  faculty — 
Penetrative  Virginity  —  which  McClintock  and  Strong's 
Cyclopcedia  of  Biblical  Literature  defines  as 

"  such  an  extraordinary  or  perfect  gift  of  chastity,  to  which 
some  have  pretended  that  it  overpowered  those  by  whom  they 
have  been  surrounded,  and  created  in  them  an  insensibility  to 
the  pleasures  of  the  flesh.  The  Virgin  Mary,  according  to 
some  Romanists,  was  possessed  of  this  gift,  which  made  those 
who  beheld  her,  notwithstanding  her  beauty,  to  have  no  senti- 
ments but  such  as  were  consistent  with  chastity." 

In  the  eyes  of  refined  modern  lovers,  every  spotless  maiden 
has  that  gift  of  penetrative  virginity.  The  beauty  of  her  face, 
or  the  charm  of  her  character,  inspires  in  him  an  affection 
which  is  as  pure,  as  chaste,  as  the  love  of  flowers.  But  it  was 
only  very  gradually  and  slowly  that  human  beauty  gained  the 
power  to  inspire  such  a  pure  love  ;  the  proof  of  which  asser- 
tion is  to  be  unfolded  in  our  next  section. 


XIV.  ADMIRATION  OF  PERSONAL  BEAUTY 

"  When  beauty  fires  the  blood,  how  love  exalts  the  mind," 
exclaimed  Dryden  ;  and  Romeo  asks  : 

Did  my  heart  love  till  now?  forswear  it,  sight! 
For  I  ne'er  saw  true«  beauty  till  this  night. 

In  full-fledged  romantic  love  of  the   masculine   type  the 
admiration  of  a  girl's  personal  beauty  is  no  doubt  the  most 


230        ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

<i 

entrancing  ingredient.  But  such  love  is  rare  even  to-day, 
while  in  ordinary  love-affairs  the  sense  of  beauty  does  not 
play  nearly  so  important  a  role  as  is  commonly  supposed.  In 
woman's  love,  as  everybody  knows,  the  regard  for  masculine 
beauty  usually  forms  an  unimportant  ingredient ;  and  a  man's 
love,  provided  sympathy,  adoration,  gallantry,  self-sacrifice, 
affection,  and  purity  enter  into  it,  may  be  of  the  genuine 
romantic  type,  even  though  he  has  no  sense  of  beauty  at  all. 
And  this  is  lucky  for  the  prospects  of  love,  since,  even  among 
the  most  civilized  races  to-day,  the  number  of  men  and 
women  who,  while  otherwise  refined  and  estimable,  have  no 
real  appreciation  of  beauty,  personal  or  otherwise,  is  astonish- 
ingly large. 


This  being  true  of  the  average  man  and  woman  among  the 
most  cultured  races,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  conclude,  as  a 
matter  of  course  and  without  the  necessity  of  argumentation, 
that  the  admiration  of  personal  beauty  has  still  less  to  do 
with  the  motives  that  lead  a  savage  to  marry  this  or  that  girl, 
or  a  savage  girl  to  prefer  this  or  that  suitor.  Strange  to  say, 
this  simple  corollary  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  has  been 
greatly  obscured  by  Darwin  himself,  by  his  theory  of  sexual 
selection,  which  goes  so  far  as  to  attribute  the  beauty  of  the 
male  animals  to  the  continued  preference  by  the  females  of 
the  more  showy  males,  and  the  consequent  hereditary  trans- 
mission of  their  colors  and  other  ornaments.  When  we  bear 
in  mind  how  unimportant  a  role  the  regard  for  personal 
beauty  plays  even  among  the  females  of  the  most  advanced 
human  beings,  the  idea  that  the  females  of  the  lower  animals 
are  guided  in  their  pairing  by  minute  subtle  differences  in  the 
beauty  of  masculine  animals  seems  positively  comic.  It  is  an 
idea  such  as  could  have  emanated  only  from  a  mind  as  unes- 
thetic  as  Darwin's  was. 

So  far  as  animals  are  concerned,  Alfred  Russell  Wallace 
completely  demolished  the  theory  of  sexual  selection,1  after 

1  In  his  Tropical  'Nature,  Contributions  to  the  Theory  of  Natural  Selec- 
tion, and  Darwinism.  In  R.  L.  P.  B.,  42-50,  where  I  gave  a  summary  of  this 


DARWIN'S   UNFORTUNATE    MISTAKE          231 

it  had  created  a  great  deal  of  confusion  in  scientific  literature. 
In  regard  to  the  lower  races  of  man  this  confusion  still  con- 
tinues, and  I  therefore  wish  to  demonstrate  here,  more  con- 
clusively than  I  did  in  my  first  book  (60,  61,  327-30),  that 
among  primitive  men  and  women,  too,  the  sense  of  beauty 
does  not  play  the  important  r61e  attributed  to  it  in  their 
love-affairs.  "  The  Influence  of  Beauty  in  determining  the 
Marriages  of  Mankind  "  is  one  of  the  topics  discussed  in  the 
Descent  of  Man.  Darwin  tries  to  show  that,  "especially" 
during  the  earlier  period  of  our  long  history,  the  races  of 
mankind  were  modified  by  the  continued  selection  of  men  by 
women  and  women  by  men  in  accordance  with  their  peculiar 
standards  of  beauty.  He  gives  some  of  the  numerous  in- 
stances showing  how  savages  ' '  ornament "  or  mutilate  their 
bodies ;  adding  :  "  The  motives  are  various ;  the  men  paint 
their  bodies  to  make  themselves  appear  terrible  in  battle  ; 
certain  mutilations  are  connected  with  religious  rites,  or  they 
mark  the  age  of  puberty,  or  the  rank  of  the  man,  or  they 
serve  to  distinguish  the  tribes.  Among  savages  the  same 
fashions  prevail  for  long  periods,  and  thus  mutilations,  from 
whatever  cause  first  made,  soon  come  to  be  valued  as  distinc- 
tive marks.  But  self -adornment,  vanity,  and  the  admira- 
tion of  others  seem  to  be  the  commonest  motives." 

Among  those  who  were  led  astray  by  these  views  of  Darwin 
is  Wester marck,  who  declares  (257,  172)  that  "in  every 
country,  in  every  race,  beauty  stimulates  passion,"  and  that 
"  it  seems  to  be  beyond  doubt  that  men  and  women  began 
to  ornament,  mutilate,  paint,  and  tattoo  themselves  chiefly 
in  order  to  make  themselves  attractive  to  the  opposite  sex — 
that  they  might  court  successfully,  or  be  courted" — an 
opinion  in  which  Grosse  follows  him,  in  his  interesting  treat- 
ise on  the  Beginnings  of  Art  (111,  etc.),  thereby  marring 
his  chapter  on  "  Personal  Decoration."  In  the  following 

question.  I  suggested  that  the  "typical  colors"  (the  numerous  cases  where  both 
sexes  are  brilliantly  colored)  for  which  Wallace  could  "  assign  no  function  or 
use,"  owe  their  existence  to  the  need  of  a  means  of  recognition  by  the  sexes; 
thus  indicating  how  the  love-affairs  of  animals  may  modify  their  appearance  in 
a  way  quite  different  from  that  suggested  by  Darwin,  and  dispensing  with  his 
postulaces  of  unproved  female  choice  and  problematic  variations  in  esthetic 
caste. 


232        ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

pages  I  shall  show,  on  the  contrary,  that  when  we  subject  these 
primitive  customs  of  "ornamentation"  and  mutilation  to  a 
critical  examination  we  find  in  nearly  every  case  that  they 
are  either  not  at  all  or  only  indirectly  (not  esthetically),  con- 
nected with  the  relations  of  the  sexes  ;  and  that  neither  does 
personal  beauty  exist  as  a  rule  among  savages,  nor  have  they 
the  esthetic  sense  to  appreciate  its  exceptional  occurrence. 
They  nearly  always  paint,  tattoo,  decorate,  or  mutilate  them- 
selves without  the  least  reference  to  courtship  or  the  desire  to 
please  the  other  sex.  It  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  fill 
page  after  page — as  Darwin,  Westermarck,  Grosse,  and  others 
have  done — with  the  remarks  of  travellers  regarding  the  ad- 
diction of  savages  to  personal  "ornamentation";  but  this 
testimony  rests,  as  we  shall  see,  on  the  unwarranted  assump- 
tions of  superficial  observers,  who,  ignorant  of  the  real  reasons 
why  the  lower  races  paint,  tattoo,  and  otherwise  "adorn" 
themselves,  recklessly  inferred  that  they  did  it  to  "make 
themselves  beautiful."  The  more  carefully  the  customs  and 
traditions  of  these  races  are  studied,  the  more  obvious  be- 
comes the  non-esthetic  and  non-erotic  origin  of  their  personal 
"  decorations."  In  my  extensive  researches,  for  every  single 
fact  that  seemed  to  favor  the  sexual  selection  theory  I  have 
found  a  hundred  against  it ;  and  I  have  become  more  and 
more  amazed  at  the  extraordinary  sang  froid  with  which  its 
advocates  have  ignored  the  countless  facts  that  speak  against 
it  while  boosting  into  prominence  the  very  few  that  at  first 
sight  appear  to  support  it.  In  the  following  pages  I  shall  at- 
tempt to  demolish  the  theory  of  sexual  selection  in  reference 
to  the  lower  races  of  man  as  Wallace  demolished  it  in  refer- 
ence to  animals  ;  premising  that  the  mass  of  cumulative  evi- 
dence here  presented  is  only  a  very  small  part  of  what  might 
be  adduced  on  my  side.  Let  us  consider  the  different  motives 
for  personal 


WAR    "DECORATIONS"  233 


FOR    PROTECTION 

Many  of  the  alleged  personal  "  decorations "  of  inferior 
races  are  merely  measures  to  protect  themselves  against 
climate,  insects,  etc.  The  Maoris  of  New  Zealand  besmear 
themselves  with  grease  and  red  ochre  as  a  defence  against  the 
sand-flies.1  The  Andaman  islanders  plaster  themselves  with 
a  mixture  of  lard  and  colored  earth  to  protect  their  skins 
from  heat  and  mosquitoes.2  Canadian  Indians  painted  their 
faces  in  winter  as  a  protection  against  frost-bite.  In  Patago- 
nia "both  sexes  smear  their  faces,  and  occasionally  their 
bodies  with  paint,  the  Indians  alleging  as  the  reasons  for 
using  this  cosmetic  that  it  is  a  protection  against  the  effects 
of  the  wind  ;  and  I  found  from  personal  experience  that  it 
proved  a  complete  preservative  from  excoriation  or  chapped 
skin."3  C.  Bock  notes  that  in  Sumatra  rice  powder  is  lavishly 
employed  by  many  of  the  women,  but  "  not  with  the  object 
of  preserving  the  complexion  or  reducing  the  color,  but  to 
prevent  perspiration  by  closing  the  pores  of  the  skin."4 
Baumann  says  of  the  African  Bakongo  that  many  of  their 
peculiar  ways  of  arranging  the  hair  "  seem  to  be  intended  less 
as  ornamental  head-dresses  than  as  a  bolster  for  the  burdens 
they  carry  on  their  heads ; 5  and  Squier  says  that  the  reason 
given  by  the  Nicaraguans  for  flattening  the  heads  of  their 
children  is  that  they  may  be  better  fitted  in  adult  life  to  bear 
burdens.6 

WAR 

Equally  remote  as  the  foregoing  from  all  ideas  of  personal 
beauty  or  of  courtship  and  the  desire  to  inspire  sexual  pas- 
sion is  the  custom  so  widely  prevalent  of  painting  and  other- 
wise "adorning"  the  body  for  war.  The  Australians  di- 

1  Angas,  II. ,  65. 

aTylor,  Anthr.j  287. 

3  Musters,  171  ;  cf.  Thomson,  Through  Maxai  Land,  89,  where  we  read  that 
woman's  coating  of  lampblack  and  castor-oil — her  only  dress — serves  to  prevent 
excessive  perspiration  in  the  day-time  and  ward  off  chills  at  night. 

« C.  Bock,  273. 

6O.  Baumann,  Mitth.  Anthr.  Ges..  Wien,  1887,  161. 

•Nicaragua,  II.,  345. 


234=       ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

versely  made  use  of  red  and  yellow  ochre,  or  of  white  pigment 
for  war  paint.1  Caesar  relates  that  the  ancient  Britons  stained 
themselves  blue  with  woad  to  give  themselves  a  more  horrid 
aspect  in  war.  "  Among  ourselves,"  as  Tylor  remarks,  "  the 
guise  which  was  so  terrific  in  the  Red  Indian  warrior  has 
comedown  to  make  the  circus  clown  a  pattern  of  folly/'2 
Regarding  Canadian  Indians  we  read  that  "some  may  be 
seen  with  blue  noses,  but  with  cheeks  and  eyebrows  black ; 
others  mark  forehead,  nose,  and  cheeks  with  lines  of  various 
colors  ;  one  would  think  he  beheld  so  many  hobgoblins. 
They  believe  that  in  colors  of  this  description  they  are  dread- 
ful to  their  enemies,  and  that  otherwise  their  own  line  of 
battle  will  be  concealed  as  by  a  veil ;  finally,  that  it  hardens 
the  skin  of  the  body,  so  that  the  cold  of  the  winter  is  easily 
borne."3  The  Sioux  Indians  blackened  their  faces  when 
they  went  on  the  warpath.  They  "  highly  prize  personal 
bravery,  and  therefore  constantly  wear  the  marks  of  distinc- 
tion which  they  received  for  their  exploits  ;  among  these  are, 
especially,  tufts  of  human  hair  attached  to  the  arms  and  legs, 
and  feathers  on  their  heads."4  When  Sioux  warriors  return 
from  the  warpath  with  scalps  "  the  squaws  as  well  as  the 
men  paint  with  vermilion  a  semicircle  in  front  of  each  ear."5 
North  Carolina  Indians  when  going  to  war  painted  their 
faces  all  over  red,  while  those  of  South  Carolina,  according 
to  DeBrahm,  "painted  their  faces  red  in  token  of  friend- 
ship and  black  in  expression  of  warlike  intentions.  "  Before 
charging  the  foe,"  says  Dorsey,  "  the  Osage  warriors  paint 
themselves  anew.  This  is  called  the  death  paint."  The 
Algonquins,  on  the  day  of  departure  for  war,  dressed  in 
their  best,  coloring  the  hair  red  and  painting  their  faces  and 
bodies  red  and  black.  The  Cherokees  when  going  to  war 
dyed  their  hair  red  and  adorned  it  with  feathers  of  various 
colors.6  Bancroft  says  (I.,  105)  that  when  a  Thlinkit  arms 
himself  for  war  he  paints  his  face  and  powders  his  hair  a 
brilliant  red.  "He  then  ornaments  his  head  with  a  white 
eagle  feather  as  a  token  of  stern,  vindictive  determination." 

1  Sturt,  II. ,  103.  2  Tylor,  237.  3  Jesuit  Relations,  L,  279. 

*  Prince  Wied,  149.  5  Belden,   145.  6  Mallery,  1888-89,  631-33. 


WAR    "DECORATIONS"  235 

John  Adair  wrote  of  the  Chickasaws,  in  1720,  that  they  "  read- 
ily know  achievements  in  war  by  the  blue  marks  over  their 
breasts  and  arms,  they  being  as  legible  as  our  alphabetical 
characters  are  to  us  " — which  calls  attention   to  a  very  fre- 
quent use  of  what  are  supposed  to  be  ornaments  as  merely 
part   of  a  language  of  signs.     Irving  remarks    in    Astoria, 
regarding  the  Arikara  warriors,  that  "  some  had  the  stamp  of 
a  red  hand  across  their  mouths,  a  sign  that  they  had  drunk 
the  life-blood  of  an  enemy. "     In  Schoolcraft  we  read  (II., 
58)   that  among    the  Dakotas   on    St.  Peter's    Kiver   a   red 
hand  means  that  the  wearer  has  been  wounded  by  an  enemy, 
while  a  black  hand  indicates  "  I  have  slain  an  enemy/'     The 
Hidatsa  Indians  wore  eagle  feathers  "  to  denote  acts  of  cour- 
age or  success  in  war " ;  and  the  Dakotas  and  others  indi- 
cated by  means  of  special  spots  or  colored  bars  in  their  feath- 
ers or  cuts  in  them,  that  the  wearer  had  killed  an  enemy,  or 
wounded  one,  or  taken  a  scalp,  or  killed  a  woman,  etc.     A 
black  feather  denoted  that  an  Ojibwa  woman    was  killed. 
The  marks  on  their  blankets  had  similar  meanings.1     Peter 
Carder,  an  Englishman  captive  among  the  Brazilians,  wrote  : 
"  This  is  to  be  noted,  that  how  many  men  these  savages  doe 
kill,  so  many  holes  they  will  have  in  their  visage,  beginning 
first  in  the  nether  lippe,  then  in  the  cheekes,  thirdly,  in' both 
their  eye-browes,  and  lastly  in  their  eares/' 2    Of  the  Abipones 
we  read  that,  "  distrusting  their  courage,  strength,  and  arms, 
they  think  that  paint  of  various  colors,  feathers,  shouting, 
trumpets,  and  other  instruments  of  terror  will  forward  their 
success/'3     Fancourt  (314)  says  of  the  natives   of  Yucatan 
that  <e  in  their  wars,  and  when  they  went  to  their  sacrificial 
dances  and  festivals,  they  had  their  faces,  arms,  thighs,  and 
legs   painted  and  naked/'     In  Fiji  the  men    bore    a   hole 
through  the  nose  and  put  in  a  couple  of  feathers,  nine  to 
twelve  inches  long,  which  spread  out  over  each  side  of  the 
face  like  immense  mustaches.     They  do  this  "to  give  them- 
selves a  fiercer  appearance/'4      Waitz  notes  that  in  Tahiti 
mothers  compressed  the  heads  of  their  infant  boys  "  to  make 

*  Mallery,  1882-83,  183.  a  Bourke,  497. 

8  Dobrizhoffer,  II.,  390.  4  Mariner,  Chapter  X. 


236       ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

their  aspect  more  terrible  and  thus  turn  them  into  more  for- 
midable warriors."  The  Tahitians,  as  Ellis  informs  us,  "  went 
to  battle  in  their  best  clothes,,  sometimes  perfumed  with 
fragrant  oil,  and  adorned  with  flowers."1  Of  the  wild  tribes 
in  Kondhistan,  too.,  we  read  that  "  it  is  only,  however,  when 
they  go  out  to  battle  ...  that  they  adorn  themselves  with  all 
their  finery." 2 

AMULETS,  CHAKMS,  MEDICINES. 

The  African  tribes  along  the  Congo  wear  on  their  bodies 
"  the  horn,  the  hoof,  the  hair,  the  teeth,  and  the  bones  of  all 
manner  of  quadrupeds  ;  the  feathers,  beaks,  claws,  skulls, 
and  bones  of  birds  ;  the  heads  and  skins  of  snakes  ;  the  shells 
and  fins  of  fishes,  pieces  of  old  iron,  copper,  wood,  seeds  of 
plants,  and  sometimes  a  mixture  of  all,  or  most  of  them,  strung 
together."  Unsophisticated  travellers  speak  of  these  things 
as  "ornaments"  indicating  the  strange  " sense  of  beauty"  of 
these  natives.  In  reality,  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
sense  of  beauty,  but  are  merely  a  manifestation  of  savage 
superstition.  In  Tuckey's  Zaire,  from  which  the  above  cita- 
tion is  made  (375),  they  are  properly  classed  as  fetiches,  and 
the  information  is  added  that  in  the  choice  of  them  the  na- 
tives consult  the  fetich  men.  A  picture  is  given  in  the  book 
of  one  appendage  to  the  dress  "  which  the  weaver  considered 
an  infallible  charm  against  poison."  Others  are  "  considered 
as  protection  against  the  effects  of  thunder  and  lightning, 
against  the  attacks  of  the  alligator,  the  hippopotamus,  snakes, 
lions,  tigers,"  etc.,  etc.  Winstanley  relates  (II.,  68)  that  in 
Abyssinia  "  the  Mateb,  or  baptismal  cord,  is  de  rigueur,  and 
worn  when  nothing  else  is.  It  formed  the  only  clothing  of 
the  young  at  Seramba,  but  was  frequently  added  to  with  amu- 
lets, sure  safeguards  against  sorcery."  Concerning  the  Bush- 
men, Mackenzie  says  :  "  Certain  marks  on  the  face,  or  bits 
of  wood  on  his  hair,  or  tied  around  his  neck,  are  medicines 
or  charms  to  be  taken  in  sickness,  or  proximity  to  lions,  or  in 
other  circumstances  of  danger."3  Bastian  relates  that  in  many 

1  Ellis,  P.  R.,  L,  343.  2  J.  Campbell,  Wild  Tribes  of  Khondutan. 

8  Mackenzie,  Day  Dawn^  67. 


AMULETS,  CHARMS,  MEDICINES  237 

parts  of  Africa  every  infant  is  tattooed  on  the  belly,  to  dedi- 
cate it  thereby  to  a  certain  fetich.1  The  inland  negroes  mark 
all  sorts  of  patterns  on  their  skins,  partly  "  to  expel  evil  in- 
fluences."2 The  Nicaraguans  punctured  and  scarified  their 
tongues  because,  as  they  explained  to  Oviedo,  it  would  bring 
them  luck  in  bargains.  The  Peruvians,  says  Cieza,  pulled 
out  three  teeth  of  each  jaw  in  children  of  very  tender  age  be- 
cause that  would  be  acceptable  to  the  gods ;  and  Garcilassa 
notes  that  the  Peruvians  pulled  out  a  hair  of  an  eyebrow  when 
making  an  offering.  Jos.  d'Acosta  also  describes  how  the 
Peruvians  pulled  out  eyelashes  and  eyebrows  and  offered  them 
to  the  deities.  The  natives  of  Yucatan,  according  to  Fan- 
court,  wore  their  hair  long  as  "a  sign  of  idolatry/'3  When 
Franklin  relates  that  Chippewayan  Indians  "  prize  pictures 
very  highly  and  esteem  any  they  can  get,"  we  seem  to  have 
come  across  a  genuine  esthetic  sense,  till  we  read  that  it  makes 
no  difference  how  badly  they  are  executed,  and  that  they  are 
valued  "as  efficient  charms."4  All  Abipones  of  both  sexes 
"  pluck  up  the  hair  from  the  forehead  to  the  crown  of  the 
head,  so  that  the  forepart  of  the  head  is  bald  almost  for  the 
space  of  two  inches ;  this  baldness  they  .  .  .  account  a 
religious  mark  of  their  nation." 5  The  Point  Barrow  Eskimos 
believe  that  clipping  their  hair  on  the  back  of  the  head  in  a 
certain  way  "prevents  snow-blindness  in  the  spring."  These 
Eskimos  painted  their  faces  when  they  went  whaling,  and  the 
Kadiaks  did  so  before  any  important  undertaking,  such  as 
crossing  a  wide  strait,  chasing  the  sea-otter,  etc.6  In  regard 
to  the  amulets  or  charms  worn  by  Eskimos,  Crantz  says  : 
"  These  powerful  preventives  consist  in  a  bit  of  old  wood  hung 
around  their  necks,  or  a  stone,  or  a  bone,  or  a  beak  or  claw  of 
a  bird,  or  else  a  leather  strap  tied  round  their  forehead,  breast, 
or  arm." 7 

Marcano  says  that  "  the  Indians  of  French  Guiana  paint 
themselves  in  order  to  drive  away  the  devil  when  they  start 
on  a  journey  or  for  war."8  In  his  treatise  on  the  religion 

>  Bastian,  Af.  7?.,  76.  «  Burton,  Abeok.  I.,  106. 

'  Spencer,  D.  fioc.,  27.  *  J.  Franklin,  P.  &,  132. 

6  Dobrizhoffer,  II.,  17.  «  Murdoch,  140. 

»  Crantz,  I.,  216.  «  Mallery,  1888-89,  621. 


238        ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

of  the  Dakotas,  Lynd  remarks  :  "  Scarlet  or  red  is  the  relig- 
ious color  for  sacrifices.  .  .  .  The  use  of  paint,  the  Dakotas 
aver,  was  taught  them  by  the  gods.  Unkteh  taught  the  first 
medicine  men  how  to  paint  themselves  when  they  worshipped 
him  and  what  colors  to  use.  Takushkanshkan  (the  moving 
god)  whispers  to  his  favorites  what  colors  to  use.  Heyoka 
hovers  over  them  in  dreams,  and  informs  them  how  many 
streaks  to  employ  upon  their  bodies  and  the  tinge  they  must 
have.  No  ceremony  of  worship  is  complete  without  the 
wakan,  or  sacred  application  of  paint." 1  By  the  Tasmanians 
"  the  bones  of  relatives  were  worn  around  the  neck,  less,  per- 
haps, as  ornaments  than  as  charms." 2  The  Ainos  of  Japan 
and  the  Fijians  held  that  tattooing  was  a  custom  introduced 
by  the  gods.  Fijian  women  believed  "  that  to  be  tattooed  is 
a  passport  to  the  other  world,  where  it  prevents  them  from 
being  persecuted  by  their  own  sex."3  An  Australian  custom 
ordained  that  every  person  must  have  the  septum  of  the  nose 
pierced  and  must  wear  in  it  a  piece  of  bone,  a  reed,  or  the 
stalks  of  some  grass.  This  was  not  done,  however,  with 
the  object  of  adorning  the  person,  but  for  superstitious 
reasons  :  "  the  old  men  used  to  predict  to  those  who  were 
averse  to  this  mutilation  all  kinds  of  evil."  The  sinner,  they 
said,  would  suffer  in  the  next  world  by  having  to  eat  filth. 
"  To  avoid  a  punishment  so  horrible,  each  one  gladly  sub- 
mitted, and  his  or  her  nose  was  pierced  accordingly."  (Brough 
Smyth,  274.)  Wilhelmi  says  that  in  the  Northwest  the  men 
place  in  the  head-band  behind  the  ears  pieces  of  wood  deco- 
rated with  very  thin  shavings  and  looking  like  plumes  of  white 
feathers.  They  do  this  "  on  occasions  of  rejoicings  and  when 
engaged  in  their  mystic  ceremonies."  Nicaraguans  trace  the 
custom  of  flattening  the  heads  of  children  to  instructions  from 
the  gods,  and  Pelew  Islanders  believed  that  to  win  eternal 
bliss  the  septum  of  the  nose  must  be  perforated,  while  Eskimo 
girls  were  induced  to  submit  to  having  long  stitches  made  with 
a  needle  and  black  thread  on  several  parts  of  the  face  by  the 
superstitious  fear  that  if  they  refused  they  would,  after  death, 

»  Lynd,  II.,  68.  a  Bonwick,  27.  •  Wilfces,  III. ,  355. 


MOURNING   LANGUAGE  239 

be  turned  into  train  tubs  and  placed  under  the  lamps  in  heaven.1 
In  order  that  the  ghost  of  a  Sioux  Indian  may  travel  the  ghost 
road  in  safety,  it  is  necessary  for  each  Dakota  during  his  life 
to  be  tattooed  in  the  middle  of  the  forehead  or  on  the  wrists. 
If  found  without  these,  he  is  pushed  from  a  cloud  or  cliff  and 
falls  back  to  this  world.2  In  Australia,  the  Kurnai  medicine 
men  were  supposed  to  be  able  to  communicate  with  ghosts  only 
when  they  had  certain  bones  thrust  through  the  nose.3  The 
American  Anthropologist  contains  (July,  1889)  a  description 
of  the  various  kinds  of  face-coloring  to  indicate  degrees  in  the 
Grand  Medicine  Society  of  the  Ojibwa.  These  Indians  fre- 
quently tattooed  temples,  forehead,  or  cheeks  of  sufferers  from 
headache  or  toothache,  in  the  belief  that  this  would  expel  the 
demons  who  cause  the  pain.  In  Congo,  scarifications  are 
made  on  the  back  for  therapeutic  reasons  ;  and  in  Timor-Laut 
(Malay  Archipelago),  both  sexes  tattooed  themselves  "in  im- 
itation of  immense  smallpox  marks,  in  order  to  ward  off  that 
disease." 4 

MOUKNING  LANGUAGE 

Australian  women  of  the  Port  Lincoln  tribes  paint  a  ring 
around  each  eye  and  a  streak  over  the  stomach,  and  men 
mark  their  breasts  with  stripes  and  paints  in  different  pat- 
terns. An  ignorant  observer,  or  an  advocate  of  the  sexual 
selection  theory,  would  infer  that  these  "decorations"  are 
resorted  to  for  the  purpose  of  ornamentation,  to  please  indi- 
viduals of  the  opposite  sex.  But  Wilhelmi,  who  understood 
the  customs  of  these  tribes,  explains  that  these  divers  stripes 
and  paints  have  a  practical  object,  being  used  to  "  indicate 
the  different  degrees  of  relationship  between  a  dead  person 
and  the  mourners."5  In  South  Australia  widows  in  mourn- 
ing "  shave  their  heads,  cover  them  with  a  netting,  and  plaster 

1  Westermarck  opines  (170)  that  "such  tales  are  not  of  much  importance, 
as  any  usage  practised  from  time  immemorial  may  easily  be  ascribed  to  the  com- 
mand of  a  god."     On  the  contrary,  such  legends  are  of  very  great  importance, 
since  they  show  how  utterly  foreign  to  the  thought  of  these  races  was  the  purpose 
of  "  decorating  "  themselves  in  these  various  ways  "in  order  to  make  them- 
selves attractive  to  the  opposite  sex." 

2  Dorsey,  486.  3  Fison  and  Howitt,  253  ;  Frazer,  28. 

*  Mallery,  1888-89,  395,  412,  417.  *  Wilhelmi,  in  Woods. 


240       ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

them  with  pipe-clay.1  A  white  band  around  the  brow  is  also 
used  as  a  badge  of  mourning.2  Taplin  says  that  the  Narrinyeri 
adorn  the  bodies  of  the  dead  with  bright-red  ochre,  and  that 
this  is  a  wide-spread  custom  in  Australia.  A  Dyeri,  on  being 
asked  why  he  painted  red  and  white  spots  on  his  skin,  an- 
swered :  "  Suppose  me  no  make-im,  me  tumble  down  too ; 
that  one  [the  corpse]  growl  along-a-me."  A  further  "  orna- 
ment "  of  the  women  on  these  occasions  consists  in  two  white 
streaks  on  the  arm  to  indicate  that  they  have  eaten  some  of  the 
fat  of  the  dead,  according  to  their  custom.  (Smyth,  I.,  120.) 
In  some  districts  the  mourners  paint  themselves  white  on 
the  death  of  a  blood  relation,  and  black  when  a  relative  by 
marriage  dies.  The  corpse  is  often  painted  red.  Red  is  used 
too  when  boys  are  initiated  into  manhood,  and  with  most 
tribes  it  is  also  the  war-color.  Hence  it  is  not  strange  that 
they  should  undertake  long  journeys  to  secure  fresh  supplies 
of  ochre  :  for  war,  mourning,  and  superstition  are  three  of 
the  strongest  motives  of  savage  activity.  African  Bushmen 
anoint  the  heads  of  the  dead  with  a  red  powder  mixed  with 
melted  fat.  Hottentots,  when  mourning,  shave  their  heads 
in  furrows.  Damaras  wear  a  dark-colored  skin-cap  :  a  piece 
of  leather  round  the  neck,  to  which  is  attached  a  piece  of 
ostrich  egg-shell.  Coast  negroes  bury  the  head  of  a  family  in 
his  best  clothes  and  ornaments,  and  Dahomans  do  the  same.3 
Schweinfurth  says  that  "according  to  the  custom,  which 
seems  to  belong  to  all  Africa,  as  a  sign  of  grief  the  Dinka 
wear  a  cord  round  the  neck."4  Mourning  New  Zealanders 
tie  a  red  cloth  round  the  head  or  wear  headdresses  of  dark 
feathers.  New  Caledonians  cut  off  their  hair  and  blacken 
and  oil  their  faces.4  Hawaiians  cut  their  hair  in  various 
forms,  knock  out  a  front  tooth,  cut  the  ears  and  tattoo  a  spot 
on  the  tongue.5  The  Mincopiesuse  three  coloring  substances 
for  painting  their  bodies  ;  and  by  the  way  they  apply  them 
they  let  it  be  known  whether  a  person  is  ill  or  in  mourning,  or 
going  to  a  festival."6  In  California  the  Yokaia  widows  make 

>  Angas,  I..  86.  2  Mitchell,  I.,  171. 

3  Spencer,  D.  S..  21,  22  ;  18,  19.  "Schweinfurth,  IT.  A.,  I.,  154. 

6 Ellis,  Haw.,  146.  6Man,  in  Jour.  Anthr.  Inst.t  XII. 


INDICATIONS   OF   TRIBE   OR   RANK  241 

an  unguent  with  which  they  smear  a  white  band  two  inches 
wide  all  around  the  edge  of  the  hair.1  Of  the  Yukon  Indians 
of  Alaska  "  some  wore  hoops  of  birch  wood  around  the  neck 
and  waists,  with  various  patterns  of  figures  cut  on  them. 
These  were  said  to  be  emblems  of  mourning  for  the  dead."2 
Among  the  Snanaimuq  "  the  face  of  the  deceased  is  painted 
with  red  and  black  paint.  .  .  .  After  the  death  of  hus- 
band or  wife  the  survivor  must  paint  his  legs  and  his  blanket 
red."3  Numerous  other  instances  may  be  found  in  Mallery, 
who  remarks  that  "many  objective  modes  of  showing  mourn- 
ing by  styles  of  paint  and  markings  are  known,  the  signifi- 
cance of  which  are  apparent  when  discovered  in  picto- 
graphs."4 

INDICATIONS   OF  TRIBE   OR   RANK 

Among  the  customs  which,  in  Darwin's  opinion,  show 
"  how  widely  the  different  races  of  man  differ  in  their  taste 
for  the  beautiful,"  is  that  of  moulding  the  skull  of  infants 
into  various  unnatural  shapes,  in  some  cases  making  the  head 
"  appear  to  us  idiotic."  One  would  think  that  before  accept- 
ing such  a  monstrous  custom  as  evidence  of  any  kind  of  a 
sense  of  beauty,  Darwin,  and  those  who  expressed  the  same 
opinion  before  and  after  him,  would  have  inquired  whether 
there  is  not  some  more  rational  way  of  accounting  for  the  ad- 
miration of  deformed  heads  by  these  races  than  by  assuming 
that  they  approved  of  them  for  esthetic  reasons.  There  is  no 
difficulty  iii  finding  several  non-esthetic  reasons  why  pecul- 
iarly moulded  skulls  were  approved  of.  The  Nicaraguans,  as 
I  have  already  stated,  believed  that  heads  were  moulded  in 
order  to  make  it  easier  to  bear  burdens,  and  the  Peruvians 
also  said  they  pressed  the  heads  of  children  to  make  them 
healthier  and  able  to  do  more  work.  But  vanity — individual 
or  tribal — and  fashion  were  the  principal  motives.  Accord- 
ing to  Torquemada,  the  kings  were  the  first  who  had  their 
heads  shaped,  and  afterward  permission  to  follow  their  exam- 
ple was  granted  to  others  as  a  special  favor.  In  their  classical 

»  Powers,  166.  '  Ball,  95.  »  Boas,  cited  by  Mallery,  534. 

*  Mallery,  1888-89,  197,  623-629. 


242        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

work  on  Peruvian  antiquities  (31-32)  Rivero  and  Tschudi  de- 
scribe the  skulls  they  examined,  including  many  varieties 
' '  artificially  produced,  and  differing  according  to  their  respec- 
tive localities."  "  These  irregularities  were  undoubtedly  pro- 
duced by  mechanical  causes,  and  were  considered  as  the  dis- 
tinctive marks  of  families  /  for  in  one  Huaca  [cemetery]  will 
always  be  found  the  same  form  of  crania ;  while  in  another, 
near  by,  the  forms  are  entirely  different  from  those  in  the 
first." 

The  custom  of  flattening  the  head  was  practised  by  various 
Indian  tribes,  especially  in  the  Pacific  States,  and  Bancroft 
(I.,  180)  says  that,  "all  seem  to  admire  a  flattened  forehead 
as  a  sign  of  noble  birth  ;  "  and  on  p.  228,  he  remarks  : 

"  Failure  properly  to  mould  the  cranium  of  her  offspring 
gives  the  Chinook  matron  the  reputation  of  a  lazy  and  un- 
dutiful  mother,  and  subjects  the  neglected  children  to  the 
ridicule  of  their  companions  ;  so  despotic  is  fashion." 

The  Arab  races  of  Africa  alter  the  shapes  of  their  children's 
heads  because  they  are  jealous  of  their  noble  descent.  (Bas- 
tian,  D.  M.,  II.,  229.) 

"The  genuine  Turkish  skull,"  says  Tylor  (Anth.,  240), 
"  is  of  the  broad  Tatar  form,  while  the  natives  of  Greece  and 
Asia  Minor  have  oval  skulls,  which  gives  the  reason  why  at 
Constantinople  it  became  the  fashion  to  mould  the  babies' 
skulls  round,  so  that  they  grew  up  with  the  broad  head  of 
the  conquering  race.  Relics  of  such  barbarism  linger  on  in 
the  midst  of  civilization,  and  not  long  ago  a  French  physician 
surprised  the  world  by  the  fact  that  nurses  in  Normandy  were 
still  giving  the  children's  heads  a  sugar-loaf  shape  by  ban- 
dages and  a  tight  cap,  while  in  Brittany  they  preferred  to 
press  it  round." 

Knocking  out  some  of  the  teeth,  or  filing  them  into  cer- 
tain shapes,  is  another  widely  prevalent  custom,  for  which 
it  is  inadmissible  to  invoke  a  monstrous  and  problematic 
esthetic  taste  as  long  as  it  can  be  accounted  for  on  simpler 
and  less  disputable  grounds,  such  as  vanity,  the  desire  for 
tribal  distinction,  or  superstition.  Holub  found  (II.,  259), 
that  in  one  of  the  Makololo  tribes  it  was  customary  to  break 


INDICATIONS   OF   TRIBE   OR   RANK  243 

out  the  top  incisor  teeth,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  "  only 
horses  that  eat  with  all  their  teeth,  and  that  men  ought  not 
to  eat  like  horses."  In  other  cases  it  is  not  contempt  for  an- 
imals but  respect  for  them  that  accounts  for  the  knocking 
out  of  teeth.  Thus  Livingstone  relates  (L.  Tr.,  II.,  120),  in 
speaking  of  a  boy  from  Lomaine,  that  "  the  upper  teeth  ex- 
tracted seemed  to  say  that  the  tribe  have  cattle.  The  knock- 
ing out  of  the  teeth  is  in  imitation  of  the  animals  they  almost 
worship."  The  Batokas  also  give  as  their  reason  for  knock- 
ing out  their  upper  front  teeth  that  they  wish  to  be  like 
oxen.  Livingstone  tells  us  (Zamb.,  115),  that  the  Manganja 
chip  their  teeth  to  resemble  those  of  the  cat  or  crocodile  : 
which  suggests  totemism,  or  superstitious  respect  for  an  animal 
chosen  as  an  emblem  of  a  tribe.  That  the  Australian  custom 
of  knocking  out  the  upper  front  teeth  at  puberty  is  part  of  a 
religious  ceremonial,  and  not  the  outcome  of  a  desire  to  make 
the  boys  attractive  to  the  girls,  as  Westermarck  naively 
assumes  (174,  172),  is  made  certain  by  the  details  given  in 
Mallery  (1888-89,  513-514),  including  an  excerpt  from  a  man- 
uscript by  A.  W.  Howitt,  in  which  it  is  pointed  out  that  the 
humming  instrument  kuamas,  the  bull-roarer,  "  has  a  sacred 
character  with  all  the  Australian  tribes  ; "  and  that  there  are 
marked  on  it  "two  notches,  one  at  each  end,  representing 
the  gap  left  in  the  upper  jaw  of  the  novice  after  his  teeth 
have  been  knocked  out  during  the  rites."1  But  perhaps 
the  commonest  motive  for  altering  the  teeth  is  the  desire  to 
indicate  tribal  connections.  "  Various  tribes,"  says  Tylor 
(Anthr.,  240),  "grind  their  front  teeth  to  points,  or  cut 
them  away  in  angular  patterns,  so  that  in  Africa  and  elsewhere 
a  man's  tribe  is  often  known  by  the  cut  of  his  teeth." 

Peculiar  arrangements  of  the  hair  also  have  misled  unwary 
observers  into  fancying  that  they  were  made  for  beauty's  sake 
and  to  attract  the  opposite  sex,  when  in  reality  they  were 
tribal  marks  or  had  other  utilitarian  purposes,  serving  as  ele- 
ments in  a  language  of  signs,  etc.  Frazer,  e.g.,  notes  (27) 
that  the  turtle  clan  of  the  Omaha  Indians  cuts  off  all  the 
hair  from  a  boy's  head  except  six  locks  which  hang  down  in 

1  See  also  the  remarks  in  Prazer's  Totemism,  26. 


244        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

imitation  of  the  legs,  head,  and  tail  of  a  turtle  ;  while  the 
Buffalo  clan  arranges  two  locks  of  hair  in  imitation  of  horns. 
"  Nearly  all  the  Indian  tribes/'  writes  Mallery  (419),  "  have 
peculiarities  of  the  arrangement  of  the  hair  and  of  some  article 
of  apparel  or  accoutrement  by  which  they  can  always  be  dis- 
tinguished." Heriot  relates  (294)  that  among  the  Indians  "  the 
fashion  of  trimming  the  hair  varies  in  a  great  degree,  and  an 
enemy  may  by  this  means  be  discovered  at  a  considerable  dis- 
tance." "The  Pueblos  generally,  when  accurate  and  particular 
in  delineation  [pictographs],  designate  the  women  of  that  tribe 
by  a  huge  coil  of  hair  over  either  ear.  This  custom  prevails 
also  among  the  Coyotero  Apaches,  the  woman  wearing  the 
hair  in  coil  to  denote  a  virgin  or  an  unmarried  person,  while 
the  coil  is  absent  in  the  case  of  a  married  woman."  By  the 
Mokis,  maidenhood  is  indicated  by  wearing  the  hair  as  a  disk 
on  each  side  of  the  head.  (Mallery,  231-32.)  Similar  usages 
on  other  continents  might  be  cited. 

Besides  these  arbitrary  modifications  of  the  skull  and  the 
teeth,  and  the  divers  arrangements  of  the  hair,  there  are 
various  other  ways  in  which  the  lower  races  indicate  tribal 
connection,  rank,  or  other  conditions.  Writing  about  negroes 
Burton  says  (Abeok.,  I.,  106),  that  lines,  welts,  and  all  sorts 
of  skin  patterns  are  used,  partly  for  superstitious  reasons, 
partly  to  mark  the  different  tribes  and  families.  "  A  volume 
would  not  suffice  to  explain  all  the  marks  in  detail."  Of  the 
Dahomans,  Forbes  says  (I.,  28),  "that  according  to  rank  and 
ivealth  anklets  and  armlets  of  all  metals,  and  necklaces  of 
glass,  coral,  and  Popae  beads,  are  worn  by  both  sexes."  Liv- 
ingstone relates  (Mis.  Trav.,  27G)  that  the  copper  rings  worn 
on  their  ankles  by  the  chiefs  of  Londa  were  so  large  and 
heavy  that  they  seriously  inconvenienced  them  in  walking. 
That  this  custom  was  entirely  an  outcome  of  vanity  and  emu- 
lation, and  not  a  manifestation  of  the  esthetic;  sense,  is  made 
clear  by  the  further  observations  of  Livingstone.  Men  who 
could  not  afford  so  many  of  these  copper  rings  would  still, 
he  found,  strut  along  as  if  they  had  them.  "  That  is  the 
way,"  he  was  informed,  "in  which  they  show  off  their  lordship 
in  these  parts."  Among  the  Mojave  Indians  "  nose-jewels 


VAIN   DESIRE   TO    ATTRACT    ATTENTION 

designate  a  man  of  wealth  and  rank/'  and  elaborate  head- 
dresses of  feathers  are  the  insignia  of  the  chiefs."  1  Cham- 
plain  says  that  among  the  Iroquois  those  who  wore  three  large 
plumes  were  chiefs.  Im  Thurn  says  (305)  that  each  of  the 
Guiana  tribes  makes  its  feather  head-dresses  of  special  colors; 
and  Martins  has  the  following  regarding  the  Brazilian  Ind- 
ians :  "  Commonly  all  the  members  of  a  tribe,  or  a  horde,  or 
a  family,  agree  to  wear  certain  ornaments  or  signs  as  char- 
acteristic marks."  Among  these  are  various  ornaments  of 
feathers  on  the  head,  pieces  of  wood,  stones,  or  shells,  in 
the  ears,  the  nose,  and  lips,  and  especially  tattoo  marks. 


VAIN    DESIRE   TO   ATTRACT    ATTENTION 

Thus  we  see  that  an  immense  number  of  mutilations  of  the 
body  and  alleged  "decorations  "  of  it  are  not  intended  by 
these  races  as  things  of  beauty,  but  have  special  meanings  or 
uses  in  connection  with  protection,  war,  superstition,  mourn- 
ing, or  the  desire  to  mark  distinctions  between  the  tribes, 
or  degrees  of  rank  within  one  tribe  or  horde.  Usually  the 
"  ornamentations  "  are  prescribed  for  all  members  of  a  tribe 
of  the  same  sex,  and  their  acceptance  is  rigidly  enforced.  At 
the  same  time  there  is  scope  for  variety  in  the  form  of  devia- 
tions or  exaggerations,  and  these  are  resorted  to  by  ambitious 
individuals  to  attract  attention  to  their  important  selves, 
and  thus  to  gratify  vanity,  which,  in  the  realm  of  fashion,  is 
a  thing  entirely  apart  from — and  usually  antagonistic  to — the 
sense  of  beauty.2  At  Australian  dances  various  colors  are 
used  with  the  object  of  attracting  attention.  Especially  fan- 
tastic are  their  "  decorations  "  at  the  corroborees,  when  the 
bodies  of  the  men  are  painted  with  white  streaks  that  make 
them  look  like  skeletons.  Bulmer  believed  that  their  object 
was  to  "  make  themselves  as  terrible  as  possible  to  the  be- 
holders and  not  beautiful  or  attractive,"  while  Grosse  thinks 
(65)  that  as  these  dances  usually  take  place  by  moonlight, 

1  Explor.  and  f>ur».  Mississippi  River  to  Pacific  Ocean.  Senate  Reports, 
Washington,  185(5,  III,  33. 

2Sr>e  the  pages  (386-91)  on  the  "Fashion  Fetish"  in  my  Romantic  Love 
and  Personal  Beauty. 


246        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

the  object  of  the  stripes  is  to  make  the  dancers  more  con- 
spicuous— two  explanations  which  are  not  inconsistent  with 
each  other. 

Fry  relates 1  that  the  Khonds  adorn  their  hair  till  they  may 
be  seen  "intoxicated  with  vanity  on  its  due  decoration/* 
Hearne  (306)  saw  Indians  who  had  a  single  lock  of  hair  that 
"  when  let  down  would  trail  on  the  ground  as  they  walked." 
Anderson  expresses  himself  with  scientific  precision  when  he 
writes  (136)  that  in  Fiji  the  men  "  who  like  to  attract  the  at- 
tention of  the  opposite  sex,  don  their  best  plumage/7  The 
attention  may  be  attracted  by  anything  that  is  conspicuous, 
entirely  apart  from  the  question  whether  it  be  regarded  as  a 
thing  of  beauty  or  not.  Bourne  makes  the  very  suggestive 
statement  (69-70)  that  in  Patagonia  the  beautiful  plumage  of 
the  ostrich  was  not  appreciated,  but  allowed  to  blow  all  over 
the  country,  while  the  natives  adorned  themselves  with  beads 
and  cheap  brass  and  copper  trinkets.  We  may  therefore  as- 
sume that  in  those  cases  where  feathers  are  used  for  "  adorn- 
ment "  it  is  not  because  their  beauty  is  appreciated  but  be- 
cause custom  has  given  them  a  special  significance.  In  many 
cases  they  indicate  that  the  wearer  is  a  person  of  rank — chief 
or  medicine  man — as  we  saw  in  the  preceding  pages.  We 
also  saw  that  special  marks  in  feathers  among  Dakotas  indi- 
cated that  the  wearer  had  taken  a  human  life,  which,  more 
than  anything  else,  excites  the  admiration  of  savage  women  ; 
so  that  what  fascinates  them  in  such  a  case  is  not  the  feather 
itself  but  the  deed  it  stands  for.  Paulitzschke  informs  us 
(E.  N.  0.  -Afr.,  chap,  ii.),  that  among  the  African  Somali 
and  Gallas  every  man  who  had  killed  someone,  boastfully 
wore  an  ostrich  feather  on  his  head  to  call  attention  to 
his  deed.  The  Danakil  wore  these  feathers  for  the  same 
purpose,  adding  ivory  rods  in  their  ear-lobes  and  fasten- 
ing a  bunch  of  white  horsehair  to  their  shield.  A  strip 
of  red  silk  round  the  forehead  served  the  same  purpose. 
Lumholtz,  describing  a  festival  dance  in  Australia  (237),  says 
that  some  of  the  men  hold  in  their  mouths  tufts  of  talegalla 
feathers  "  for  the  purpose  of  giving  themselves  a  savage  look/' 

1  Jour.  Roy.  As.  Soc.,  I860, 13. 


OBJECTS   OF   TATTOOING  247 

By  some  Australians  bunches  of  hawk's  or  eagle's  feathers  are 
worn  "either  when  fighting  or  dancing,  and  also  used  as  a 
fan"  (Brough  Smyth,  I.,  281-282),  which  suggests  the 
thought  that  the  fantastic  head-dresses  of  feathers,  etc.,  often 
seen  in  warm  countries,  may  be  worn  as  protection  against 
the  sun.1 

I  doubt,  too,  whether  the  lower  races  are  able  to  appreciate 
flowers  esthetically  as  we  do,  apart  from  their  fragrance, 
which  endears  them  to  some  barbarians  of  the  higher  grades. 
Concerning  Australian  women  we  find  it  recorded  by  Brough 
Smyth  (I.,  270)  that  they  seem  to  have  no  love  of  flowers,  and 
do  not  use  them  to  adorn  their  persons.  A  New  Zealander 
explained  his  indifference  to  flowers  by  declaring  that  they 
were  "not  good  to  eat."2  Other  Polynesians  were  much 
given  to  wearing  flowers  on  the  head  and  body  ;  but  whether 
this  was  for  esthetic  reasons  seems  to  me  doubtful  on  account 
of  the  revelations  made  by  various  missionaries  and  others. 
In  Ellis,  e.g.  (P.  R.,  I.,  114),  we  read  that  in  Tahiti  the  use  of 
flowers  in  the  hair,  and  fragrant  oil,  has  been  in  a  great  degree 
discontinued,  "  partly  from  the  connection  of  these  ornaments 
with  the  evil  practices  to  which  they  were  formerly  addicted." 


OBJECTS   OF  TATTOOING 

So  far  tattooing  has  been  mentioned  only  incidentally  ; 
but  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  widely  prevalent  methods  of 
primitive  personal  "decoration"  a  few  pages  must  be  de- 
voted to  it  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  it  is  true  that  it  is 
one  of  those  ornamentations  which,  as  Darwin  would  have 
us  believe,  help  to  determine  the  marriages  of  mankind,  or, 
as  Westermarck  puts  it,  "  men  and  women  began  to  ... 
tattoo  themselves  chiefly  in  order  to  make  themselves  attract- 
ive to  the  opposite  sex — that  they  might  court  successfully, 

1  Feathers  also  serve  various  other  useful  purposes  to  Australians.  An  apron 
of  emu  feathers  distinguishes  females  who  are  not  yet  matrons.  (Smyth,  I  ,  xl.) 
Howitt  says  that  in  Central  Australia  messengers  sent  to  avenge  a  death  are 
painted  yellow  and  wear  feathers  on  their  head  and  in  the  girdle  at  the  spine. 
(Mallery,  1888-89.  4:!3.) 

a  Related  by  Dieffenbach.  Heriot  even  declares  of  the  northern  Indians 
(352)  that  "  they  assert  that  they  find  no  odor  agreeable  but  that  of  food." 


248        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

or  be  courted."  We  shall  find  that,  on  the  contrary,  tattooing 
has  had  from  the  earliest  recorded  times  more  than  a  dozen 
practical  purposes,  and  that  its  use  as  a  stimulant  of  the 
passion  of  the  opposite  sex  probably  never  occurred  to  a 
savage  until  it  was  suggested  to  him  by  a  philosophizing 
visitor. 

Twenty-four  centuries  ago  Herodotus  not  only  noted  that 
the  Thracians  had  punctures  on  their  skins,  but  indicated 
the  reason  for  them  :  they  are,  he  said,  "a,  mark  of  nobility  : 
to  be  without  them  is  a  testimony  of  mean  descent."  *  This 
use  of  skin  disfigurements  prevails  among  the  lower  races  to 
the  present  day,  and  it  is  only  one  of  many  utilitarian  and 
non-esthetic  functions  subserved  by  them.  In  his  beauti- 
fully illustrated  volume  on  Maori  tattooing,  Major- General 
Robley  writes : 

"  Native  tradition  has  it  that  their  first  settlers  used  to 
mark  their  faces  for  battle  with  charcoal,  and  that  the  lines 
on  the  face  thus  made  were  the  beginnings  of  the  tattoo. 
To  save  the  trouble  of  this  constantly  painting  their  warlike 
decorations  on  the  face,  the  lines  were  made  permanent. 
Hence  arose  the  practice  of  carving  the  face  and  the  body 
with  dyed  incisions.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Taylor  .  .  .  assumes 
that  the  chiefs  being  of  a  lighter  race,  and  having  to  fight 
side  by  side  with  slaves  of  darker  hues,  darkened  their  faces 
in  order  to  appear  of  the  same  race." 


TATTOOING    ON    PACIFIC    ISLANDS 

When  Captain  Cook  visited  New  Zealand  (1769)  he  was 
much  interested  in  the  tattooing  of  the  Maoris,  and  noted 
that  each  tribe  seemed  to  have  a  different  custom  in  regard  to  it ; 
thus  calling  attention  to  one  of  its  main  functions  as  a  means 
to  distinguish  the  tribes  from  each  other.  He  described  the 
different  patterns  on  divers  parts  of  the  body  used  by  various 
tribes,  and  made  the  further  important  observation  that  "by 
adding  to  the  tattooing  they  grow  old  and  honorable  at  the 
same  time."  The  old  French  navigator  d'Urville  found  in 

1  For  other  references  to  ancient  nations,  see  Joest  in  Zeitschr.  fur  Eth- 
nologic, 1888,  415. 


TATTOOING    ON    PACIFIC    ISLANDS  249 

the  Maori  tattooing  an  analogy  to  European  heraldry,  with 
this  difference  :  that  whereas  the  coat-of-arms  attests  the  mer- 
its of  ancestors,  the  Maori  moko  illustrates  the  merits  of  the 
persons  decorated  with  it.  It  makes  them,  as  Robley  wittily 
says,  "  men  of  mark."  One  chief  explained  that  a  certain 
mark  just  over  his  nose  was  his  name  ;  it  served  the  purposes 
of  a  seal  in  signing  documents.  It  has  been  suggested  that 
the  body  of  a  warrior  may  have  been  tattooed  for  the  sake  of 
identification  in  case  the  head  was  separated  from  it ;  for  the 
Maoris  carried  on  a  regular  trade  in  heads.  Rutherford,  who 
was  held  for  a  long  time  as  a  captive,  said  that  only  the  great 
ones  of  the  tribe  were  allowed  to  decorate  the  forehead,  upper 
lip,  and  chin.  Naturally  such  marks  were  "  a  source  of  pride  " 
(a  sign  of  rank),  and  "  the  chiefs  were  very  pleased  to  show 
the  tattooing  on  their  bodies."  To  have  an  untattooed  face 
was  to  be  "a  poor  nobody."  Ellis  (P.  R.,  III.,  263)  puts 
the  matter  graphically  by  saying  the  New  Zealander's  tattoo- 
ing answers  the  purpose  of  the  particular  stripe  or  color  of 
the  Highlander's  plaid,  marking  the  clan  or  tribe  to  which 
they  belong,  and  is  also  said  to  be  employed  as  "a  means  of 
enabling  them  to  distinguish  their  enemies  in  battle." 

In  his  great  work  on  Borneo  (II.,  83),  Roth  cites  Brooke 
Low,  who  said  that  tattooing  was  a  custom  of  recent  introduc- 
tion :  "I  have  seen  a  few  women  with  small  patterns  on  their 
breasts,  but  they  were  the  exception  to  the  rule  and  were  not 
regarded  with  favor."  Burns  says  that  the  Kayan  men  do 
not  tattoo,  but  "  many  of  the  higher  classes  have  small  figures 
of  stars,  beasts,  or  birds  on  various  parts  of  their  body,  chiefly 
the  arms,  distinctive  of  rank.  The  highest  mark  is  that  of 
having  the  back  of  the  hands  colored  or  tattooed,  which  is 
only  conferred  on  the  brave  in  battle."  St.  John  says  that  "  a 
man  is  supposed  to  tattoo  one  finger  only,  if  he  has  been 
present  when  an  enemy  has  been  killed,  but  tattoos  hand  and 
fingers  if  he  has  taken  an  enemy's  head."  Among  the  Ida'an 
a  man  makes  a  mark  on  his  arm  for  each  enemy  slain.  One 
man  was  seen  with  thirty-seven  such  stripes  on  the  arm.  A 
successful  head-hunter  is  also  allowed  to  "decorate"  his 
ears  with  the  canine  teeth  of  a  Bornean  leopard.  "In  some 


250       ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

cases  tatu  marks  appear  to  be  used  as  a  means  of  communica- 
ting a  fact,"  writes  Roth  (II.,  291).  Among  the  Kayan  it 
indicates  rank.  Slaughter  of  an  enemy,  or  mere  murder  of 
a  slave,  are  other  reasons  for  tattooing.  "A  Murut,  having 
run  away  from  the  enemy,  was  tatued  on  his  back.  So  that 
we  may  justly  conclude  that  tatuing  among  the  natives  of 
Borneo  is  one  method  of  writing."  Among  the  Dusun  the 
men  that  took  heads  generally  had  a  tattoo  mark  for  each  one 
on  the  arm,  and  were  looked  upon  as  very  brave,  though  their 
victim  might  have  been  only  a  woman  or  a  child  (159). 

In  the  fifth  volume  of  Waitz-Gerland's  Anthropologie 
(Pt.  II.,  64-67),  a  number  of  authors  are  cited  testifying  that 
in  the  Micronesian  Archipelago  the  natives  of  each  island  had 
special  kinds  of  tattoo  marks  on  different  parts  of  the  body, 
to  distinguish  them  from  others.  These  marks  were  named 
after  the  islands.  The  Micronesians  themselves  attached 
also  a  religious  significance  to  these  marks.  The  natives  of 
Tobi  believed  that  their  island  would  be  destroyed  if  the 
English  visitors  who  came  among  them  were  not  at  once 
tattooed.  Only  those  completely  marked  could  enter  the 
temple.  The  men  were  more  tattooed  than  the  women,  who 
were  regarded  as  inferiors. 

In  the  sixth  volume  of  Waitz-Gerland  (30-40)  is  gathered 
a  large  mass  of  evidence,  all  of  which  shows  that  on  the  Poly- 
nesian islands,  too,  tattooing  was  indulged  in,  not  for  aesthetic 
and  amorous  but  for  religious  and  practical  reasons.  In 
Tonga  it  was  a  mark  of  rank,  not  permitted  to  common  peo- 
ple or  to  slaves.  Not  to  be  tattooed  was  considered  improper. 
In  the  Marquesas  the  older  and  more  distinguished  a  man, 
the  more  he  was  tattooed.  Married  women  were  distinguished 
by  having  marks  on  the  right  hand  and  left  foot.  In  some 
cases  tattoo  marks  were  used  as  signs  to  call  to  mind  certain 
battles  or  festivals.  A  woman  in  Ponape  had  marks  for  all 
her  successive  husbands  made  on  her  arm — everything  and 
anything,  in  fact,  except  the  purpose  of  decorating  for  the 
sake  of  attracting  the  other  sex.  Gerland  (33-40)  makes  out 
a  very  strong  case  for  the  religious  origin  of  tattooing,  which 
he  aptly  compares  to  our  confirmation. 


TATTOOING    IN   AMERICA  251 

In  Samoa  the  principal  motive  of  tattooing  seems  to  have 
been  licentiousness.  It  was  prohibited  by  the  chiefs  on  ac- 
count of  the  obscene  practices  always  connected  with  it,  and 
there  is  a  legend  of  the  incestuous  designs  of  two  divine 
brothers  on  their  sister  which  was  successful.  "Tattooing 
thus  originated  among  the  gods  and  was  first  practised  by  the 
children  of  Taaroa,  their  principal  deity.  In  imitation  of 
their  example,  and  for  the  accomplishment  of  the  same  pur- 
pose, it  was  practised  among  men/'  (Ellis,  P.  R.,  L,  262.) 

TATTOOING   IN   AMEBICA 

On  the  American  continent  we  find  tattooing  practised 
from  north  to  south,  from  east  to  west,  for  the  most  diverse 
reasons,  among  which  the  desire  to  facilitate  courtship  is 
never  even  hinted  at.  The  Eskimos,  about  the  age  of  pu- 
berty, apply  paint  and  tattooing  to  their  faces,  cut  holes  and 
insert  plugs  or  labrets.  The  object  of  these  disfigurements  is 
indicated  by  Bancroft  (I.,  48) :  "  Different  tribes,  and  differ- 
ent ranks  of  the  same  tribe,  have  each  their  peculiar  form 
of  tattooing/'  Moreover,  (f  these  operations  are  supposed  to 
possess  some  significance  other  than  that  of  mere  ornament. 
Upon  the  occasion  of  piercing  the  lip,  for  instance,  a  re- 
ligious feast  is  given."  John  Murdoch  relates  (Mallery,  396) 
that  the  wife  of  an  Eskimo  chief  had  "a  little  mark  tat- 
tooed in  each  corner  of  her  mouth,  which  she  said  were  '  whale 
marks/  indicating  that  she  was  the  wife  of  a  successful  whale- 
man." Of  the  Kadiaks  Bancroft  says  (72) :  "  The  more  the 
female  chin  is  riddled  with  holes,  the  greater  the  respecta- 
bility." Among  the  Chippewayan  Indians  Mackenzie  found 
(85)  that  both  sexes  had  "  blue  or  black  bars,  or  from  one  to 
four  straight  lines,  on  their  cheeks  or  foreheads  to  distinguish 
the  tribe  to  which  they  belong."  '  Swan  writes  (Mallery,  1882- 
83,  67)  that  "  the  tattoo  marks  of  the  Haidas  are  heraldic 
designs  or  the  family  totem,  or  crests  of  the  wearers,  and  are 
similar  to  the  carvings  depicted  in  the  pillars  and  monuments 
around  the  homes  of  the  chiefs."  A  Haida  Indian  remarked 
to  Swan  (69)  :  "If  you  were  tattooed  with  the  design  of  a 
swan,  the  Indians  would  know  your  family  name."  It  is  at 


262        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

festivals  and  masquerade  performances,  says  the  same  writer, 
that  "  the  tatoo  marks  show  with  the  best  effect,  and  the 
rank  and  family  connection  [are]  known  by  the  variety  of 
design."  Lafitau  reports  (II.,  43)  regarding  the  Iroquois  and 
Algonquins  that  the  designs  which  they  have  tattooed  on  their 
faces  and  bodies  are  employed  as  hieroglyphics,  writing,  and 
records,  to  indicate  victories,  etc.  The  designs  tattooed  on 
an  Indian's  face  or  body  distinguish  him,  he  adds,  as  we  do  a 
family  by  its  armorial  bearings.  "  In  James's  Long  it  is  re- 
ported that  the  Omahas  are  often  neatly  tattooed.  .  .  . 
The  daughters  of  chiefs  and  those  of  wealthy  Indians  gen- 
erally are  denoted  by  a  small  round  spot  tattooed  on  the  fore- 
head." (Mallery,  1888-89,  395.)  Bossu  says  regarding  the 
practice  of  tattooing  by  the  Osages  (in  1756)  :  "  It  is  a  kind  of 
knighthood  to  which  they  are  only  entitled  by  great  actions." 
Blue  marks  tattooed  upon  the  chin  of  a  Mojave  woman  in- 
dicate that  she  is  married.  The  Serrano  Indians  near  Los 
Angeles  had,  as  late  as  1843,  a  custom  of  having  special  tattoo 
marks  on  themselves  which  were  also  made  on  trees  to  in- 
dicate the  corner  boundaries  of  patches  of  land.  (Mallery, 
1882-83,  64,  182.)  In  his  book  on  the  California  Indians, 
Powers  declares  (109)  that  in  the  Mattoal  tribe  the  men 
tattoo  themselves  ;  in  the  others  the  women  alone  tattoo. 
The  theory  that  the  women  are  thus  marked  in  order  that 
the  men  may  be  able  to  recognize  them  and  redeem  them 
from  captivity  seems  plausible  for  the  reasons  that  these 
Indians  are  rent  into  a  great  number  of  divisions  and  that 
"  the  squaws  almost  never  attempt  any  ornamental  tattooing, 
but  adhere  closely  to  the  plain  regulation  mark  of  the  tribe." 
The  Hupa  Indians  have  discovered  another  practical  use  for 
body-marks.  Nearly  every  man  has  ten  lines  tattooed  across 
the  inside  of  his  left  arm,  and  these  lines  serve  as  a  measure- 
ment of  shell-money. 

The  same  non-esthetic  motives  for  tattooing  prevail  in 
South  and  Central  America.  In  Agassiz's  book  on  Brazil  we 
read  (318)  concerning  the  Mundurucu  Indians  :  "  Major 
Coutinho  tells  us  that  the  tattooing  has  nothing  to  do  with 
individual  taste,  but  that  the  pattern  is  appointed  for  both 


TATTOOING   IN   JAPAN  253 

sexes,  and  is  invariable  throughout  the  tribe.  It  is  connected 
with  their  caste,  the  limits  of  which  are  very  precise,  and  with 
their  religion."  The  tattooing  "is  also  an  indication  of  aris- 
tocracy ;  a  man  who  neglected  this  distinction  would  not  be 
respected  in  his  tribe."  Concerning  the  Indians  of  Guiana 
we  read  in  Im  Thurn  (195-96)  that  they  have  small  distinct- 
ive tribal  marks  tattooed  at  the  corners  of  the  month  or  on 
the  arms.  Nearly  all  have  "  indelibly  excised  lines  "  which 
are  "scars  originally  made  for  surgical,  not  ornamental  pur- 
poses." "  Some  women  specially  affect  certain  little  figures, 
like  Chinese  characters,  which  looks  as  if  some  meaning  were 
attached  to  them,  but  which  the  Indians  are  either  unable  or 
unwilling  to  explain."  In  Nicaragua,  as  Squire  informs  us 
(III.,  341),  the  natives  tattooed  themselves  to  designate  by 
special  marks  the  tribes  to  which  they  belonged  ;  and  as  re- 
gards Yucatan,  Landa  writes  (§  XXI.)  that  as  tattooing  was 
accompanied  by  much  pain,  they  thought  themselves  the  more 
gallant  and  strong  the  more  they  indulged  in  it ;  and  that 
those  who  omitted  it  were  sneered  at — which  gives  us  still  an- 
other motive  for  tattooing — the  fear  of  being  despised  and 
ridiculed  for  not  being  in  fashion. 

TATTOOING    IN   JAPAN 

Many  more  similar  details  might  be  given  regarding  the 
races  of  various  parts  of  the  world,  but  the  limits  of  space 
forbid.  But  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  add  a  citation 
from  Professor  Chamberlain's  article  on  tattooing  in  his 
Things  Japanese,  because  it  admirably  illustrates  the  di- 
versity of  the  motives  that  led  to  the  practice.  A  Chinese 
trader,  "  early  in  the  Christian  era,"  Chamberlain  tells  us, 
"wrote  that  the  men  all  tattoo  their  faces  and  ornament 
their  bodies  with  designs,  differences  of  rank  being  indicated 
by  the  position  and  size  of  tlie  patterns."  "But  from  the 
dawn  of  regular  history,"  Chamberlain  adds, 

"far  down  into  the  middle  ages,  tattooing  seems  to  have 
been  confined  to  criminals.  It  was  used  as  branding  was 
formerly  in  Europe,  whence  probably  the  contempt  still  felt 


254       ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL    BEAUTY 

for  tattooing  by  the  Japanese  upper  classes.  From  con- 
demned desperadoes  to  bravoes  at  large  is  but  a  step.  The 
swashbucklers  of  feudal  times  took  to  tattooing,  apparently 
because  some  blood  and  thunder  scene  of  adventure,  engraven 
on  their  chest  and  limbs,  helped  to  give  them  a  terrific  air 
when  stripped  for  any  reason  of  their  clothes.  Other  classes 
whose  avocations  led  them  to  baring  their  bodies  in  public 
followed — the  carpenters,  for  instance,  and  running  grooms  ; 
and  the  tradition  remained  of  ornamenting  almost  the  entire 
body  and  limbs  with  a  hunting,  theatrical,  or  other  showy 
scene/'  Shortly  after  1868  "  the  government  made  tattooing 
a  penal  offence." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  this  account  the  fantastic  notion 
that  the  custom  was  ever  indulged  in  for  the  purpose  of  beau- 
tifying the  body  in  order  to  attract  the  other  sex  is,  as  in  all 
the  other  citations  I  have  made,  not  even  hinted  at.  The 
same  is  true  in  the  summary  made  by  Mallery  of  the  seven- 
teen purposes  of  tattooing  he  found.  'No.  13  is,  indeed,  "to 
charm  the  other  sex  ; "  but  it  is  "  magically,"  which  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  esthetically.  I  append  the  summary 
(418)  : 

"1,  to  distinguish  between  free  and  slave,  without  reference 
to  the  tribe  of  the  latter ;» 2,  to  distinguish  between  a  high 
and  low  status  in  the  same  tribe  ;  3,  as  a  certificate  of  bravery 
exhibited  by  supporting  the  ordeal  of  pain  ;  4,  as  marks  of 
personal  prowess,  particularly  ;  5,  as  a  record  of  achievements 
in  war ;  6,  to  show  religious  symbols  ;  7,  as  a  therapeutic 
remedy  for  disease  ;  8,  as  a  prophylactic  against  disease  :  9, 
as  a  brand  of  disgrace  ;  10,  as  a  token  of  a  woman's  marriage, 
or,  sometimes,  11,  of  her  marriageable  condition  ;  12,  identifi- 
cation of  the  person,  not  as  a  tribesman,  but  as  an  individual ; 
13,  to  charm  the  other  sex  magically ;  14,  to  inspire  fear  in  the 
enemy;  15,  to  magically  render  the  skin  impenetrable  to  weak- 
ness ;  16,  to  bring  good  fortune,  and,  17,  as  the  device  of  a 
secret  society. 

SCARIFICATION. 

Dark  races,  like  the  Africans  and  Australians,  do  not  prac- 
tise tattooing,  because  the  marks  would  not  show  conspic- 
uously on  their  black  skins.  They  therefore  resort  to  the 
process  of  raising  scars  by  cutting  the  skin  with  flint  or  a 


ALLEGED   TESTIMONY    OF    NATIVES  255 

shell  and  then  rubbing  in  earth,  or  the  juice  of  certain  plants, 
etc.  The  result  is  a  permanent  scar,  and  these  scars  are  ar- 
ranged by  the  different .  tribes  in  different  patterns,  on  divers 
parts  of  the  body.  In  Queensland  the  lines,  according  to 
Lumholtz  (177),  "  always  denote  a  certain  order  of  rank,  and 
here  it  depends  upon  age.  Boys  under  a  certain  age  are  not 
decorated  ;  but  in  time  they  receive  a  few  cross-stripes  upon 
their  chests  and  stomachs.  The  number  of  stripes  is  grad- 
ually increased,  and  when  the  subjects  have  grown  up,  a  half- 
moon-shaped  line  is  cut  around  each  nipple."  The  necessity 
for  such  distinctive  marks  on  the  body  is  particularly  great 
among  the  Australians,  because  they  are  subdivided  in  the 
most  complicated  ways  and  have  an  elaborate  code  of  sexual 
permissions  and  prohibitions.  Therefore,  as  Frazer  suggests 
(38),  "  a  chief  object  of  these  initiation  ceremonies  was  to 
teach  the  youths  with  whom  they  might  or  might  not  have 
connection,  and  to  put  them  in  possession  of  a  fisible  lan- 
guage, ...  by  means  of  which  they  might  be  able  to 
communicate  their  totems  to,  and  to  ascertain  the  totems  of, 
strangers  whose  language  they  did  not  understand."  In 
Africa,  too,  as  we  have  seen,  the  scars  are  used  as  tribal 
names,  and  for  other  practical  purposes.  Holub  (7)  found 
that  the  Koranna  of  Central  South  Africa  has  three  cuts  on 
the  chest.  They  confessed  to  him  that  they  indicated  a  kind 
of  free-masonry,  insuring  their  being  well  received  by  Koran- 
na everywhere.  On  the  Congo,  scarifications  are  made  on  the 
back  for  therapeutic  reasons,  and  on  the  face  as  tribal  marks. 
(Mallery,  417 ;  H.  Ward,  136.)  Bechuana  priests  make  long 
scars  on  a  warrior's  thigh  to  indicate  that  he  has  slain  an 
enemy  in  battle.  (Lichtenstein,  II.,  331.)  According  to 
d'Albertis  the  people  of  New  Guinea  use  some  scars  as  a  sign 
that  they  have  travelled  (I.,  213).  And  so  on,  ad  infinitum. 


ALLEGED  TESTIMONY   OF   NATIVES 

In  face  of  this  imposing  array  of  facts  revealing  the  non- 
esthetic  character  of  primitive  personal  "decorations,"  what 
have  the  advocates  of  the  sexual  selection  theory  to  say  ? 


256        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

Taking  Westermarck  as  their  most  erudite  and  persuasive 
spokesman,  we  find  him  placing  his  reliance  on  four  things  : 
(1)  the  practical  ignoring  of  the  vast  multitude  of  facts  contra- 
dicting his  theory  ;  (2)  the  alleged  testimony  of  a  few  savages  ; 
(3)  the  testimony  of  some  of  their  visitors ;  (4)  the  alleged  fact 
that  "  the  desire  for  self-decoration  is  strongest  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  age  of  puberty,"  the  customs  of  ornamenting,  mu- 
tilating, painting,  and  tattooing  being  "practised  most  zeal- 
ously at  that  period  of  life."  Concerning  (1)  nothing  more  need 
be  said,  as  the  large  number  of  decisive  facts  I  have  collected 
exposes  and  neutralizes  that  stratagem.  The  other  three  ar- 
guments must  be  briefly  considered. 

A  native  of  Lukunor  being  asked  by  Mertens  what  was  the 
meaning  of  tattooing,  answered  :  "It  has  the  same  object  as 
your  clothes  ;  that  is,  to  please  the  women."  In  reply  to  the 
question  why  he  wore  his  ornaments,  an  Australian  answered 
Buhner  :•"  In  order  to  look  well  and  make  himself  agreeable 
to  the  women."  (Brough  Smyth,  I.,  275.)  To  one  who  has 
studied  savages  not  only  anthropologically  but  psychologi- 
cally, these  stories  have  an  obvious  cock-and-bull  aspect.  A 
native  of  the  Caroline  Islands  would  have  been  as  incapable 
of  originating  that  philosophical  comparison  between  the  ob- 
ject of  our  clothes  and  of  his  tattooing  as  he  would  have 
been  of  writing  Carlyle's  Sartor  Resartus.  Human  beings 
in  his  stage  of  evolution  never  consciously  reflect  on  the 
reasons  of  things,  and  considerations  of  comparative  psychol- 
ogy or  esthetics  are  as  much  beyond  his  mental  powers  as 
problems  in  algebra  or  trigonometry.  That  such  a  sailor's 
yarn  could  be  accepted  seriously  in  an  anthropologic  treatise 
shows  that  anthropology  is  still  in  its  cradle.  The  same  is 
true  of  that  Australian's  alleged  answer.  The  Australian  is 
unequal  to  the  mental  effort  of  counting  up  to  ten,  and,  like 
other  savages,  is  easily  fatigued  by  the  simplest  questions.1 
It  is  quite  likely  that  Bulmer  asked  that  native  whether  he 
ornamented  himself  "  in  order  to  look  well  and  make  himself 
agreeable  to  the  women,"  and  that  the  native  answered  "yes" 
merely  to  gratify  him  or  to  get  rid  of  the  troublesome  ques- 

1  See,  for  instance,  Spix  and  Mai  tius,  384. 


MISLEADING   TESTIMONY    OF   VISITORS        257 

tion.  The  books  of  missionaries  are  full  of  such  cases,  and 
no  end  of  confusion  has  been  created  in  science  by  such  false 
"  facts."  The  answer  given  by  that  native  is,  moreover, 
utterly  opposed  to  all  the  well-attested  details  I  have  given  in 
the  preceding  pages  regarding  the  real  motives  of  Australians 
in  "  decorating"  themselves  ;  and  to  those  facts  I  may  now 
add  this  crushing  testimony  from  Brough  Smyth  (I.,  270)  : 
"  The  proper  arrangement  of  their  apparel,  the  ornamentation 
of  their  persons  by  painting,  and  attention  to  deportment, 
were  important  only  when  death  struck  down  a  warrior,  when 
war  was  made,  and  when  they  assembled  for  a  corroboree. 
In  ordinary  life  little  attention  was  given  to  the  ornamenting 
of  the  person." 

MISLEADING   TESTIMONY    OF   VISITORS 

"  The  Australians  throughout  the  continent  scar  their 
persons,  as  Mr.  Curr  assures  us,  only  as  a  means  of  decora- 
tion," writes  Westermarck  (169),  and  in  the  pages  preceding 
and  following  he  cites  other  evidence  of  the  same  sort,  such  as 
Carver's  assertion  that  the  Naudowessies  paint  their  faces  red 
and  black,  "  which  they  esteem  as  greatly  ornamental  ; " 
Tuckey's  assumption  that  the  natives  of  the  Congo  file  their 
teeth  and  raise  scars  on  the  skin  for  purposes  of  ornament 
and  principally  "  with  the  idea  of  rendering  themselves  agree- 
able to  the  women  ; "  RiedeFs  assertion,  that  in  the  Tenim- 
ber  group  the  lads  decorate  their  locks  with  leaves,  flowers, 
and. feathers,  "only  in  order  to  please  the  women  •"  Taylor's 
statement  that  in  New  Zealand  it  was  the  great  ambition  of 
the  young. to  have  fine  tattooed  faces,  "both  to  render  them- 
selves attractive  to  the  ladies,  and  conspicuous  in  war/'  etc. 

Beginning  with  Curr,  it  must  be  conceded  that  he  is  one 
of  the  leading  authorities  on  Australia,  the  author  of  a  four- 
volume  treatise  on  that  country  and  its  natives.  Yet  his  tes- 
timony on  the  point  in  question  happens  to  be  as  worthless 
as  that  of  the  most  hasty  globe-trotter,  partly  because  he  had 
evidently  paid  little  attention  to  it,  and  partly  also,  I  fancy, 
because  of  the  fatal  tendency  of  men  of  science  to  blunder  as 
soon  as  they  touch  the  domain  of  esthetics.  What  he  really 


258       ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

wrote  (II.,  275)  is  that  Chatfieid  had  informed  him  that  scars 
were  made  by  the  natives  on  the  right  thigh  "  for  the  purpose 
of  denoting  the  particular  class  to  which  they  belong."  This 
Curr  doubts,  "  without  further  evidence,"  because  it  would 
conflict  with  the  custom  prevalent  throughout  the  continent, 
"  as  far  as  known,  which  is  to  make  these  marks  for  orna- 
ment only."  Now  this  is  a  pure  assumption  of  Curr's,  based 
on  a  preconceived  notion,  and  contradicted  by  the  specific 
evidence  of  a  number  of  explorers  who,  as  even  Grosse  is  ob- 
liged to  admit  (75),  "  unanimously  account  for  a  part  at  least 
of  the  scars  as  tribal  marks." l 

If  so  eminent  an  authority  as  Curr  can  err  so  grievously,  it 
is  obvious  that  the  testimony  of  other  writers  and  casual  ob- 
servers must  be  accepted  with  extreme  caution.  Europeans 
and  Americans  are  so  accustomed  to  regard  personal  deco- 
rations as  attempts  to  beautify  the  appearance  that  when  they 
see  them  in  savages  there  is  a  natural  disposition  to  attribute 
them  to  the  same  motive.  They  do  not  realize  that  they  are 
dealing  with  a  most  subtle  psychological  question.  The 
chief  source  of  confusion  lies  in  their  failure  to  distinguish 
between  what  is  admired  as  a  thing  of  beauty  as  such  and 
what  pleases  them  for  other  reasons.  As  Professor  Sully  has 
pointed  out  in  his  -Handbook  of  Psychology  (337)  : 

"  At  the  beginning  of  life  there  is  no  clear  separation  of 
what  is  beautiful  from  what  is  simply  pleasing  to  the  individ- 
ual. As  in  the  history  of  the  race,  so  in  that  of  the  individual, 
the  sense  of  beauty  slowly  extricates  itself  from  pleasurable 
consciousness  in  general,  and  differentiates  itself  from  the 
sense  of  what  is  personally  useful  and  agreeable." 

Bearing  in  mind  this  very  important  distinction  between 
what  is  beautiful  and  what  is  merely  pleasing  because  of  its 
being  useful  and  agreeable,  we  see  at  once  that  the  words 
"decorative,"  "ornamental,"  "attractive,"  "handsome," 
etc.,  are  constantly  used  by  writers  on  this  subject  in  a  mis- 

i  See  e.g.,  Eyre,  II.,  333-335  ;  Brough  Smyth,  I,  XLI,  68,  295,  II.,  313 ;  Rid. 
ley,  Kamilaroi,  140;  Journ.  Roy.  Soc.  N.  S.  W.,  1882,  201  ;  and  the  old  au- 
thorities cited  by  Waitz-Gerland,  VI.,  740  ;  cf.  Frazer,  29.  If  Westermarck 
had  been  more  anxious  to  ascertain  the  truth  than  to  prove  a  theory,  would  he 
have  found  it  necessary  to  ignore  all  this  evidence,  neglecting  to  refer  even  to 
Chatfieid  in  speaking  of  Curr  ? 


MISLEADING   TESTIMONY   OF   VI< 


leading  and  question-begging  way.  We  can  hardly  blame  a 
man  like  Barrington  for  writing  (11)  that  among  the  natives 
of  Botany  Bay  ' '  scars  are,  by  both  sexes,  deemed  highly 
ornamental " ;  but  a  scientific  author  who  quotes  such  a 
sentence  ought  to  be  aware  that  the  evidence  did  not  justify 
Barrington  in  using  any  word  but  pleasing  in  place  of  "  or- 
namental/' because  the  latter  implies  and  takes  for  granted 
the  esthetic  sense,  the  existence  of  which  is  the  very  thing 
to  be  proved.  This  remark  applies  generally  to  the  evi- 
dence of  this  kind  which  Westermarck  has  so  industriously 
collected,  and  which,  on  account  of  this  undiscriminating, 
question-begging  character,  is  entirely  worthless.  In  all  these 
cases  the  fact  is  overlooked  that  the  "  decorations  "  of  one  sex 
may  be  agreeable  to  the  other  for  reasons  that  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  sense  of  beauty. 

Briefly  summed  up,  Westermarck's  theory  is  that  in  paint- 
ing, tattooing,  and  otherwise  decorating  his  person,  primitive 
man's  original  and  conscious  object  was  to  beautify  himself 
for  the  sake  of  gaining  an  advantage  in  courtship  ;  whereas  my 
theory  is  that  all  these  decorations  originally  subserved  useful 
purposes  alone,  and  that  even  where  they  subsequently  may 
have  served  in  some  instances  as  means  to  please  the  women, 
this  was  not  as  things  of  beauty  but  indirectly  and  unintention- 
ally through  their  association  with  rank,  wealth,  distinction  in 
war,  prowess,  and  manly  qualities  in  general.  When  Dobriz- 
hoffer  says  (II.,  12)  that  the  Abipones,  "more  ambitious  to 
be  dreaded  by  their  enemies  than  to  be  loved,  to  terrify  than 
attract  beholders,  think  the  more  they  are  scarred  and  sun- 
burnt, the  handsomer  they  are,"  he  illustrates  glaringly  the 
slovenly  and  question-begging  use  of  terms  to  which  I  have 
just  referred  ;  for,  as  his  own  reference  to  being  loved  and  to 
attracting  beholders  shows,  he  does  not  use  the  word  "  hand- 
some" in  an  esthetic  sense,  but  as  a  synonyme  for  what  is 
pleasing  or  worthy  of  approval  on  other  grounds.  If  the 
scars  of  these  Indians  do  please  the  women  it  is  not  because 
they  are  considered  beautiful,  but  because  they  are  tokens  of 
martial  prowess.  To  a  savage  woman  nothing  is  so  useful  as 
manly  valor,  and  therefore  nothing  so  agreeable  as  the  signs 


260        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

of  it.  In  that  respect  the  average  woman's  nature  lias  not 
changed.  The  German  high-school  girl  admires  the  scars  in 
the  face  of  a  "corps-student,"  not,  certainly,  because  she 
considers  them  beautiful,  but  because  they  stand  for  a  dare- 
devil, masculine  spirit  which  pleases  her. 

When  the  Rev.  R.  Taylor  wrote  (321)  that  among  the  New 
Zealanders  "  to  have  fine  tattooed  faces  was  the  great  am- 
bition of  the  young,  both  to  render  themselves  attractive  to 
the  ladies  and  conspicuous  in  war/'  he  would  have  shown 
himself  a  better  philosopher  if  he  had  written  that  by  mak- 
ing themselves  conspicuous  in  war  with  their  tattooing  they 
also  make  themselves  attractive  to  the  "  ladies."  That  the 
sense  of  beauty  is  not  concerned  here  becomes  obvious  when 
we  include  Robley's  testimony  (28,  15)  that  a  Maori  chief's 
great  object  was  to  excite  fear  among  enemies,  for  which 
purpose  in  the  older  days  he  "  rendered  his  countenance  as 
terrible  as  possible  with  charcoal  and  red  ochre";  while  in 
more  recent  times,  "  not  only  to  become  more  terrible  in  war, 
when  fighting  was  carried  on  at  close  quarters,  but  to  appear 
more  distinguished  and  attractive  to  the  opposite  sex,  must 
certainly  be  included  "  among  the  objects  of  tattooing.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  if  we  accept  the  sexual 
selection  theory  this  expert  testimony  lands  us  in  insuperable 
difficulty  ;  for  it  is  clearly  impossible  that  on  the  same  island, 
and  in  the  same  race,  the  painting  and  tattooing  of  the  face 
should  have  the  effect  of  terrifying  the  men  and  of  appearing 
beautiful  to  the  women.  But  if  we  discard  the  beauty  theory 
and  follow  my  suggestion,  we  have  no  difficulty  whatever. 
Then  we  may  grant  that  the  facial  daubs  or  skin  mutilations 
may  seem  terrible  or  hideous  to  an  enemy  and  yet  please  the 
women,  because  the  women  do  not  regard  them  as  things  of 
beauty,  but  as  distinguishing  marks  of  valiant  warriors. 

By  way  of  illustrating  his  maxim  that  "in  every  country, 
in  every  race,  beauty  stimulates  passion,"  Westermarck  cites 
(257)  part  of  a  sentence  by  Lumholtz  (213)  to  the  effect  that 
Australian  women  take  much  notice  of  a  man's  face,  particu- 
larly of  the  part  about  the  eyes.  He  does  not  cite  the  rest 
of  the  sentence — "  and  they  like  to  see  a  frank  and  open,  or 


"DECORATION"    AT   AGE   OF   PUBERTY      261 

perhaps,  more  correctly,  a  wild  expression  of  countenance" 
which  makes  it  clear  to  the  reader  that  what  stimulates  the 
passion  of  these  women  is  not  the  lines  of  beauty  in  the 
[never- washed]  faces  of  these  men,  but  the  unbeautiful  aspect 
peculiar  to  a  wild  hunter,  ferocious  warrior,  and  intrepid  de- 
fender of  his  home.  Their  admiration,  in  other  words,  is  not 
esthetic,  but  instinctively  utilitarian. 


AT   THE    AGE   OF    PUBERTY 

We  come  now  to  the  principal  argument  of  Westermarck — 
the  alleged  fact  that  in  all  parts  of  the  world  the  desire  for 
self-decoration  is  strongest  at  the  beginning  of  the  age  of 
puberty,  the  customs  of  ornamenting,  painting,  mutilating, 
and  tattooing  the  person  being  practised  most  zealously  at  that 
period.  This  argument  is  as  futile  as  the  others,  for  several 
reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  true  that  in  all  parts  of 
the  world  self -decoration  is  practised  most  zealously  at  that 
period.  More  frequently,  perhaps,  it  is  begun  some  years 
earlier,  before  any  idea  of  courtship  can  have  entered  the 
heads  of  these  children.  The  Congo  cannibals  begin  the  pro-- 
cess of  scarring  the  face  at  the  age  of  four.1  Dyak  girls  are 
tattooed  at  five.2  The  Botocudos  begin  the  mutilating  of 
children's  lips  at  the  age  of  seven.3  Eskimo  girls  are  tat- 
tooed in  their  eighth  year,4  and  on  the  Andaman  Islands  few 
children  are  allowed  to  pass  their  eighth  year  without  scarifica- 
tion.5 The  Damaras  chip  the  teeth  with  a  flint  "  when  the 
children  arc  young." 6  The  female  Oraons  are  "  all  tattooed 
in  childhood."'  The  Tahitians  began  tattooing  at  eight.8 
The  Olmkchis  of  Siberia  tattoo  girls  at  nine  ; 9  and  so  on  in 
various  parts  of  the  world.  In  the  second  place,  of  the  di- 
vers.  personal  "  decorations"  indulged  in  by  the  lower  races 
it  is  only  those  that  are  intended  to  be  of  a  permanent  char- 
acter (tattooing,  scarring,  mutilating)  that  are  made  chiefly 

1  H  Ward,  136.  a  Roth,  II ,  83. 

3  Martius,  I.,  321.  «  Boas,  Bur.  Ethnol.,  1884-88,  561. 

6  Mann,  Journ.  Anthr   Soc  ,  XII,  333.        «  Ga'ton,  148. 
'Dalton,  251.  8  Waitz-Gerland,  VI.,  30. 

«Mallery,  1888-89,  414. 


262       ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

(though  by  no  means  exclusively)  l  about  or  before  the  age  of 
puberty. 

All  the  other  methods  of  "decorating"  described  in  the  pre- 
ceding pages  as  being  connected  with  the  rites  of  war,  supersti- 
tion, mourning,  etc.,  are  practised  throughout  life  ;  and  that 
they  constitute  by  far  the  greater  proportion  of  "ornamenta- 
tions "  is  evidenced  by  the  citation  I  have  already  made,  from 
Brough  Smyth, that  the  ornamentation  of  their  persons  was  con- 
sidered important  by  Australians  only  in  connection  with  such 
ceremonies,  and  that  "in  ordinary  life  little  attention  was 
given  to  the  ornamenting  of  the  person";  to  which  much 
similar  testimony  might  be  added  regarding  other  races ; 
such  as  Kane's  (184),  regarding  the  Chinooks  :"  Painting 
the  face  is  not  much  practised  among  them,  except  on  ex- 
traordinary occasions,  such  as  the  death  of  a  relative,  some 
solemn  feast,  or  going  on  a  war-party  ; "  or  Morgan's  (263), 
that  the  feather  and  war  dances  were  "the  chief  occasions" 
when  the  Iroquois  warrior  "was  desirous  to  appear  in  his 
best  attire,"  etc. 

Again,  even  if  it  were  true  that  "  the  desire  for  self -decora- 
tion is  strongest  at  the  beginning  of  the  age  of  puberty,"  it 
does  not  by  any  means  follow  that  this  must  be  due  to  the 
desire  to  make  one's  self  attractive  to  the  opposite  sex.  What- 
ever their  desire  may  be,  the  childr.en  have  no  choice  in  the 
matter.  As  Curr  remarks  regarding  Australians  (II.,  51), 
"  The  male  must  commonly  submit,  without  hope  of  escape, 
to  have  one  or  more  of  his  teeth  knocked  out,  to  have  the 
septum  of  his  nose  pierced,  to  have  certain  painful  cuttings 
made  in  his  skin,  .  .  .  before  he  is  allowed  the  rights 
of  manhood."  There  are,  however,  plenty  of  reasons  why 
he  should  desire  to  be  initiated.  What  Turner  writes  regard- 
ing the  Samoans  has  a  general  application  : 

( '  Until  a  young  man  was  tattooed,  he  was  considered  in  his 
minority.  He  could  not  think  of  marriage,  and  he  was  con- 

1  To  take  three  cases  in  place  of  many  :  Carl  Bock  relates  (67)  that  among 
some  Borneans  tattooing  is  one  of  the  privileges  of  matrimony  and  is  not  al- 
lowed to  unmarried  girls.  D'Urville  describes  the  tattooing  of  the  wife  of 
chief  Tuao,  who  seemed  to  glory  in  the  "  new  honor  his  wife  was  securing  by 
these  decorations."  (Robley,  41. )  Among  the  Papuans  of  New  Guinea  tattooing 
the  chest  of  females  denotes  that  they  are  married.  (Mallery,  411.) 


"DECORATION"   AT   AGE   OF   PUBERTY      263 

stantly  exposed  to  taunts  and  ridicule,  as  being  poor  and  of 
low  birth,  and  as  having  no  right  to  speak  in  the  society  of 
men.  But  as  soon  as  he  was  tattooed  he  passed  into  his 
majority,  and  considered  himself  entitled  to  the  respect  and 
privileges  of  mature  years.  When  a  youth,  therefore,  reached 
the  age  of  sixteen,  he  and  his  friends  were  all  anxiety  that  he 
should  be  tattooed."1 

No  one  can  read  the  accounts  of  the  initiatory  ceremonies 
of  Australian  and  Indian  boys  (convenient  summaries  of 
which  may  be  found  in  the  sixth  volume  of  Waitz-Gerland 
and  in  Southey's  Brazil,  III.,  387-88)  without  becoming  con- 
vinced that  with  them,  as  with  the  Samoaiis,  etc.,  there  was 
no  thought  of  women  or  courtship.  Indeed  the  very  idea  of 
such  a  thing  involves  an  absurdity,  for,  since  all  the  boys  in 
each  tribe  were  tattooed  alike,  what  advantage  could  their 
marks  have  secured  them  ?  If  all  men  were  equally  rich, 
would  any  woman  ever  marry  for  money  ?  Westermarck  ac- 
cepts (174)  seriously  the  assertion  of  one  writer  that  the  rea- 
son why  Australians  knock  out  some  of  the  teeth  of  the  boys 
at  puberty  is  because  they  know  "that  otherwise  they  would 
run  the  risk  of  being  refused  on  account  of  ugliness/'  Now, 
apart  from  the  childish  supposition  that  Australian  women 
could  allow  their  amorous  inclinations  to  depend  on  the  pres- 
ence or  absence  of  two  front  teeth,  this  assertion  involves  the 
assumption  that  these  females  can  exercise  the  liberty  of 
choice  in  the  selection  of  a  mate — an  assumption  which  is 
contrary  to  the  truth,  since  all  the  authorities  on  Australia 
agree  on  at  least  one  point,  which  is  that  women  have  ab- 
solutely no  choice  in  the  selection  of  a  husband,  but  have  to 
submit  in  all  cases  to  the  dispositions  made  by  their  male 
relatives.  These  Australian  women,  moreover,  perversely 
act  in  a  manner  utterly  inconsistent  with  the  theory  of  sexual 
selection.  Since  they  do  not  choose,  but  are  chosen,  one 
would  naturally  expect,  in  accordance  with  that  theory,  that 
they  would  decorate  themselves  in  order  to  "stimulate  the 
passion  "  of  the  desirable  men  ;  but  they  do  no  such  thing. 

1  It  is  significant  that  Westermarck  (17'.>)  though  he  refers  to  page  90  of 
Turner,  ignores  the  passage  I  have  just  cited,  though  it  occurs  on  the  same 
page 


364       ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

While  the  men  are  apt  to  dress  their  hair  carefully,  the 
women  "  let  their  black  locks  grow  as  irregular  and  tangled 
as  do  the  Fuegians  "  (Grosse,  87)  ;  and  Buhner  says  they 
"  did  little  to  improve  their  appearance;"  while  such  orna- 
ments as  they  had  "  were  not  much  regarded  by  the  men." 
(Brough  Smyth,  I.,  275.) ' 


One  of  the  most  important  reasons  why  young  savages  ap- 
proaching puberty  are  eager  to  receive 'their  "decorations" 
remains  to  be  considered.  Tattooing,  scarring,  and  muti- 
lating are  usually  very  painful  processes.  Now,  as  all  who 
are  familiar  with  the  life  of  savages  know,  there  is  nothing 
they  admire  so  much  as  courage  in  enduring  torture  of  any 
kind.  By  showing  fortitude  in  bearing  the  pain  connected 
with  tattooing,  etc.,  these  young  folks  are  thus  able  to  win  ad- 
miration, gratify  their  vanity,  and  show  that  they  are  worthy 
to  be  received  in  the  ranks  of  adults.  The  Sea  Dyaks  are 
proud  of  their  scars,  writes  Brooke  Low.  (t  The  women  of- 
ten prove  the  courage  and  endurance  of  the  youngsters  by 
placing  a  lighted  ball  of  tinder  in  the  arm  and  letting  it  burn 
into  the  skin.  The  marks  .  .  .  are  much  valued  by  the 
young  men  as  so  many  proofs  of  their  power  of  endurance/'' 
(Roth,  II.,  80.)  Here  we  have  an  illustration  which  explains 
in  the  most  simple  way  why  scars  please  both  the  men  and 
the  women,  without  making  necessary  the  grotesque  assump- 
tion that  either  sex  admires  them  as  things  of  beauty.  To 
take  another  case,  equally  eloquent  :  Bossu  says  of  the  Osage 
Indians  that  they  suffer  the  pain  of  tattooing  with  pleasure 
in  order  to  pass  for  men  of  courage.  If  one  of  them  should 

1  Australia  is  by  no  means  the  only  country  where  the  women  are  less  dec- 
orated than  the  men.  Various  explanations  have  been  offered,  but  none  of  them 
covers  all  the  facts.  The  real  reason  becomes  obvious  if  my  view  is  accepted 
that  the  alleged  ornaments  of  savages  are  not  esthetic,  but  practical  or  utilita- 
rian. The  women  are  usually  allowed  to  share  such  things  as  badges  of  mourn- 
ing, amulets,  and  various  devices  that  attract  attention  to  wealth  or  rank  ;  but 
the  religious  rites,  and  the  manifold  decorations  associated  with  military  life — 
the  chief  occupation  of  these  peoples — they  are  not  allowed  to  share,  and  these, 
with  the  tribal  marks,  furnish,  as  we  have  seen,  the  occasion  for  the  most  di- 
verse and  persistent  "decorative  "  practices. 


MUTILATION,   FASHION,   AND   EMULATION     265 

have  himself  marked  without  having  previously  distinguished 
himself  in  buttle,  he  would  be  degraded  and  looked  upon  as 
a  coward,  unworthy  of  such  an  honor.  (Mallery,  1889-90, 
394.) 

Grosse  is  inclined  to  think  (78)  that  it  is  in  the  male  only 
that  courage  is  expected  and  admired,  but  he  is  mistaken,  as 
we  may  see,  e.g.,  in  the  account  given  by  Dobrizhoffer  (II., 
21)  of  the  tattooing  customs  of  the  Abipones,  whom  he  studied 
so  carefully.  The  women,  he  says,  "  have  their  face,  breast, 
and  arms  covered  with  black  figures  of  various  shapes,  so  that 
they  present  the  appearance  of  a  Turkish  carpet/7  "This 
savage  ornament  is  purchased  with  blood  and  many  groans." 
The  thorns  used  to  puncture  the  skin  are  poisonous,  and 
after  the  operation  the  girl  has  her  eyes,  cheeks,  and  lips  so 
horribly  swelled  that  she  "  looks  like  a  Stygian  fury/'  If  she 
groans  while  undergoing  the  torture,  or  shows  signs  of  pain 
in  her  face,  the  old  woman  who  operates  on  her  exclaims,  in 
a  rage  :  "  You  will  die  single,  be  assured.  Which  of  our 
heroes  would  think  so  cowardly  a  girl  worthy  to  be  his 
wife  ?"  Such  courage,  Dobrizhoffer  explains  further,  is  ad- 
mired in  a  girl  because  it  makes  her  "  prepared  to  bear  the 
pains  of  parturition  in  time."  In  some  cases  vanity  supplies 
an  additional  motive  why  the  girls  should  submit  to  the  pain- 
ful operation  with  fortitude  ;  for  those  of  them  who  "  are 
most  pricked  and  painted  you  may  know  to  be  of  high  rank." 

Here  again  we  see  clearly  that  the  tattooing  is  admired  for 
other  than  esthetic  reasons,  and  we  realize  how  foolish  it  is 
to  philosophize  about  the  peculiar  "taste"  of  these  Indians 
in  admiring  a  girl  who  looks  like  "  a  Turkish  carpet "  or  "  a 
Stygian  fury."  If  they  had  even  the  rudiments  of  a  sense  of 
beauty  they  would  not  indulge  in  such  disgusting  disfigure- 
ments. 

MUTILATION,    FASHION,    AND    EMULATION 

Grosse  declares  (80)  that  "  we  know  definitely  at  least,  that 
tattooing  is  regarded  by  the  Eskimo  as  an  embellishment." 
He  bases  this  inference  on  Cranz's  assertion  that  Eskimo 
mothers  tattoo  their  daughters  in  early  youth  "  for  fear  that 


266        ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

otherwise  they  would  not  get  a  husband."  Had  Grosse  al- 
lowed his  imagination  to  paint  a  particular  instance,  he 
would  have  seen  how  grotesque  his  inference  is.  A  favorite 
way  among  the  Eskimo  of  securing  a  bride  is,  we  are  told, 
to  drag  her  from  her  tent  by  the  hair.  This  young  woman, 
moreover,  has  never  washed  her  face,  nor  does  any  man  ob- 
ject to  her  filth.  Yet  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  an  Eskimo 
could  be  so  enamoured  of  the  beauty  of  a  few  simple  lines  tat- 
tooed on  a  girl's  dirty  face  that  he  would  refuse  to  marry  her 
unless  she  had  them  !  Like  other  champions  of  the  sexual 
selection  theory,  Grosse  searches  in  the  clouds  for  a  comically 
impossible  motive  when  the  real  reason  lies  right  before  his 
eyes.  That  reason  is  fashion.  The  tattoo  marks  are  tribal 
signs  (Bancroft,  I.,  48)  which  every  girl  must  submit  to  have 
in  obedience  to  inexorable  custom,  unless  she  is  prepared  to 
be  an  object  of  scorn  and  ridicule  all  her  life. 

The  tyranny  of  fashion  in  prescribing  disfigurements  and 
mutilations  is  not  confined  to  savages.  The  most  amazing 
illustration  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  China,  where  the  girls  of 
the  upper  classes  are  obliged  to  this  day  to  submit  to  the 
most  agonizing  process  of  crippling  their  feet,  which  finally, 
as  Professor  Flower  remarks  in  his  book  on  Fashion  and  De- 
formity, assume  "  the  appearance  of  the  hoof  of  some  animal 
rather  than  a  human  foot."  There  is  a  popular  delusion 
that  the  Chinese  approve  of  such  deformed  small  feet  be- 
cause they  consider  them  beautiful — a  delusion  which  Wes- 
termarck  shares  (200).  Since  the  Chinese  consider  small  feet 
"  the  chief  charm  of  women,"  it  might  be  supposed,  he  says, 
that  the  women  would  at  least  have  the  pleasure  of  fasci- 
nating men  by  a  "  beauty"  to  acquire  which  they  have  to  un- 
dergo such  horrible  torture  ;  "  but  Dr.  Strieker  assures  us 
that  in  China  a  woman  is  considered  immodest  if  she  shows 
her  artificially  distorted  feet  to  a  man.  It  is  even  improper 
to  speak  of  a  woman's  foot,  and  in  decent  pictures  this  part 
is  always  concealed  under  the  dress."  To  explain  this  ap- 
parent anomaly  Westermarck  assumes  that  the  object  of  the 
concealment  "  is  to  excite  through  the  unknown  ! "  To 
such  fantastic  nonsense  does  the  doctrine  of  sexual  selection 


MUTILATION,   FASHION,   AND   EMULATION    267 

lead.  In  reality  there  is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  the 
Chinese  consider  crippled  feet — looking  like  "  the  hoof  of  an 
animal " — beautiful  any  more  than  mutilations  of  other  parts 
of  the  body.  In  all  probability  the  origin  of  the  custom  of 
crippling  women's  feet  must  be  traced  to  the  jealousy  of  the 
men,  who  devised  this  procedure  as  an  effective  way  of  pre- 
venting their  wives  from  leaving  their  homes  and  indulging 
in  amorous  intrigues  ;  other  practices  with  the  same  purpose 
being  common  in  Oriental  countries.  In  course  of  time  the 
foot-binding  became  an  inexorable  fashion  which  the  foolish- 
ly conservative  women  were  more  eager  to  continue  than  the 
men.  All  accounts  agree  that  the  anti-foot-binding  move- 
ment finds  its  most  violent  and  stubborn  opponents  in  the 
women  themselves.  The  Missionary  Review  for  July,  1899, 
contains  an  article  summing  up  a  report  of  the  Tien  Tsu 
Hui,  or  "  Natural  Foot  Society/'  which  throws  a  bright  light 
on  the  whole  question  and  from  which  I  quote  as  follows  : 

"  The  male  members  of  a  family  may  be  opposed  to  the 
maiming  of  their  female  relatives  by  the  senseless  custom, 
but  the  women  will  support  it.  One  Chinese  even  promised 
his  daughter  a  dollar  a  day  to  keep  her  natural  feet,  and 
another,  having  failed  with  his  older  girls,  arranged  that  his 
youngest  should  be  under  his  personal  supervision  night  and 
day.  The  one  natural-footed  girl  was  sought  in  marriage  for 
the  dollars  that  had  been  faithfully  laid  by  for  her.  But  at 
her  new  home  she  was  so  ridiculed  by  the  hundreds  who 
came  to  see  her — and  her  feet — that  she  lost  her  reason.  The 
other  girl  also  became  insane  as  a  result  of  the  persecutions 
which  she  had  to  endure." 

Thus  we  see  that  what  keeps  up  this  hideous  custom  is  not 
the  women's  desire  to  arouse  the  esthetic  admiration  and 
amorous  passion  of  the  men  by  a  hoof  of  beauty,  but  the  fear 
of  ridicule  and  persecution  by  the  other  women,  slaves  of 
fashion  all.  These  same  motives  are  the  source  of  most  of  the 
ugly  fashions  prevalent  even  in  civilized  Europe  and  America. 
Theophile  Gautier  believed  that  most  women  had  no  sense 
of  beauty,  but  only  a  sense  of  fashion  ;  and  if  explorers  and 
missionaries  had  borne  in  mind  the  fundamental  difference 
between  fashion  and  esthetics,  anthropological  literature 


268        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

would  be  the  poorer  by  hundreds  of  "  false  facts  "and  lu- 
dicrous inferences.1 

The  ravages  of  fashion  are  aggravated  by  emulation,  which 
has  its  sources  in  vanity  and  envy.  This  accounts  for  the  ex- 
tremes to  which  mutilations  and  fashions  often  go  among 
both  civilized  and  uncivilized  races,  and  of  which  a  startling 
instance  will  be  described  in  detail  in  the  next  paragraph. 
Few  of  our  rich  women  wear  their  jewels  because  of  their  in- 
trinsic beauty.  They  wear  them  for  the  same  reason  that 
Polynesian  or  African  belles  wear  all  the  beads  they  can  get. 
In  Mariner's  book  on  the  Tongans  (Chap.  XV.)  there  is  an 
amusing  story  of  a  chiefs  daughter  who  was  very  anxious  to 
go  to  Europe.  Being  asked  why,  she  replied  that  her  great 
desire  was  to  amass  a  large  quantity  of  beads  and  then  return 
to  Tonga,  "  because  in  England  beads  are  so  common  that  no 

1  The  advocates  of  the  sexual  selection  theory  might  have  avoided  many 
grotesque  blunders  had  they  possessed  a  sense  of  humor  to  counterbalance 
and  control  their  erudition.  The  violent  opposition  of  Madagascar  women  to 
King  Iladama's  order  that  the  men  should  have  their  hair  cut,  to  which  Wester- 
marck  refers  (174-75),  surely  finds  in  the  proverbial  stupid  conservatism  of  bar- 
barous customs  a  simpler  and  more  rational  explanation  than  in  his  assumption 
that  this  riot  illustrated  "the  important  part  played  by  the  hair  of  the  head  as 
a  stimulant  of  sexual  passion  "  (to  these  coarse,  masculine  women,  who  had  to 
be  speared  before  they  could  be  quieted).  An  argument  which  attributes  to  un- 
washed, vermin-covered  savages  a  fanatic  zeal  for  what  they  consider  as  beau- 
tiful, such  as  no  civilized  devotee  of  beauty  would  ever  dream  of,  involves  its 
own  rcductio  adabxurdum  by  proving  too  much.  Westermarck  also  cites  (177) 
from  a  book  on  Brazil  the  story  that  if  a  young  maiden  of  the  Tapoyers  "be 
marriageable,  and  yet  not  courted  by  any,  the  mother  paints  her  with  some  red 
color  about  the  eyes,"  and  in  accordance  with  his  theory  we  are  soberly  expected 
to  accept  this  red  paint  about  the  ej'es  as  an  effective  "  stimulant  of  sexual 
passion,"  in  case  of  a  girl  whose  appearance  otherwise  did  not  tempt  men  to 
court  her  !  The  obvious  object  of  the  paint  was  to  indicate  that  the  girl  was 
in  the  market.  In  other  words,  it  was  pa,rt  of  that  language  of  signs  whioh 
had  such  a  remarkable  development  among  some  of  the  uncivilized  races  (see 
Mailer y's  admirable  treatises  on  Indian  Pictographs,  taking  up  hundrpds  of 
pagas  in  two  volumes  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology  at  Washington).  Belden 
relates  (145)  of  the  Plains  Indians  that  a  warrior  who  is  courting  a  squaw 
usually  paints  his  eyes  yellow  or  blue,  and  the  squaw  paints  hers  red.  He  even 
knew  squaws  go  through  the  painful  operation  of  reddening  the  eyeballs, 
which  he  interprets  as  resulting  from  a  desire  to  fascinate  the  men  ;  but 
it  is  much  more  likely  that  it  had  some  special  significance  in  the  language 
of  courtship,  probably  as  a  mark  of  courage  in  enduring  pain,  than  that  the 
inflamed  eye  itself  was  considered  beautiful.  Belden  himself  further  points  out 
that  "  a  red  stripe  drawn  horizontally  from  one  eye  to  the  other,  means  that 
the  young  warrior  has  seen  a  squaw  he  could  love  if  she  would  reciprocate 
his  attachment,"  and  on  p.  144  he  explains  that  when  a  warrior  smears  his 
face  with  lampblack  and  then  draws  zigzags  with  his  nails,  it  is  a  sign  that  he 
desires  to  be  left  alone,  or  is  trapping,  or  melancholy,  or  in  love."  I  had  in- 
tended to  give  a  special  paragraph  to  Decorations  as  Parts  of  the  Language 
of  Signs,  but  desisted  on  reflecting  that  most  of  the  foregoing  facts  relating 
to  war,  mourning,  tribal,  etc.,  decorations,  really  came  under  that  head. 


BEAUTY   VERSUS    DECORATION  269 

one  would  admire  me  for  wearing  them,  and  /  should  not 
have  the  pleasure  of  being  envied."  Bancroft  (I.,  128)  says 
of  the  Kutchin  Indians :  "  Beads  are  their  wealth,  used 
in  the  place  of  money,  and  the  rich  among  them  literally 
load  themselves  with  necklaces  and  strings  of  various  pat- 
terns." Referring  to  the  tin  ornaments  worn  by  Dyaks, 
Carl  Bock  says  he  has  "  counted  as  many  as  sixteen  rings  in 
a  single  ear,  each  of  them  the  size  of  a  dollar  "  ;  while  of  the 
Ghonds  Forsyth  tells  us  (148)  that  they  "deck  themselves 
with  an  inordinate  amount  of  what  they  consider  ornaments. 
Quantity  rather  than  quality  is  aimed  at." 

PERSONAL   BEAUTY   VERSUS    PERSONAL   DECORATION 

Must  we  then,  in  view  of  the  vast  number  of  opposing 
facts  advanced  so  far  in  this  long  chapter,  assume  that 
savages  and  barbarians  have  no  esthetic  sense  at  all,  not  even 
a  germ  of  it  ?  Not  necessarily.  I  believe  that  the  germ  of  a 
sense  of  visible  beauty  may  exist  even  among  savages  as  well 
as  the  germ  of  a  musical  sense  ;  but  that  it  is  little  more  than 
a  childish  pleasure  in  bright  and  lustrous  shells  and  other 
objects  of  various  colors,  especially  red  and  yellow,  everything 
beyond  that  being  usually  found  to  belong  to  the  region  of 
utility  (language  of  signs,  desire  to  attract  attention,  etc.) 
and  not  to  esthetics — that  is,  the  love  of  beauty  for  its  own 
sake.  Such  a  germ  of  esthetic  pleasure  we  find  in  our  in- 
fants years  before  they  have  the  faintest  conception  of  what  is 
meant  by  personal  beauty  ;  and  this  brings  me  to  the  pith 
of  my  argument.  Had  the  facts  warranted  it,  I  might  have 
freely  conceded  that  savages  decorate  themselves  for  the  sake 
of  gaining  an  advantage  in  courtship  without  thereby  in  the 
least  yielding  the  main  thesis  of  this  chapter,  which  is  that 
the  admiration  of  personal  beauty  is  not  one  of  the  motives 
which  induce  a  savage  to  marry  a  particular  girl  or  man  ;  for 
most  of  the  "  decorations  "  described  in  the  preceding  pages  are 
not  elements  of  personal  beauty  at  all,  but  are  either  external 
appendages  to  that  beauty,  or  mutilations  of  it.  I  have  shown 
by  a  superabundance  of  facts  that  these  "  decorations "  do 


270        ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

not  serve  the  purpose  of  exciting  the  amorous  passion  and 
preference  of  the  opposite  sex,  except  non-esthetically  and 
indirectly,  in  some  cases,  through  their  standing  as  marks  of 
rank,  wealth,  distinction  in  war,  etc.  I  shall  now  proceed  to 
show,  much  more  briefly,  that  still  less  does  personal  beauty 
proper  serve  among  the  lower  races  as  a  stimulant  of  sexual 
passion.  This  we  should  expect  naturally,  since  in  the  race 
as  in  the  child  the  pleasure  in  bright  baubles  must  long  pre- 
cede the  pleasure  in  beautiful  faces  or  figures.  Every  one 
who  has  been  among  Indians  or  other  savages  knows  that 
nature  produces  among  them  fine  figures  and  sometimes  even 
pretty  faces  ;  but  these  are  not  appreciated.  Galton  told 
Darwin  that  he  saw  in  one  South  African  tribe  two  slim, 
slight,  and  pretty  girls,  but  they  were  not  attractive  to  the  na- 
tives. Zoller  saw  at  least  one  beautiful^  negress  ;  Wallace 
describes  the  superb  figures  of  some  of  the  Ik^zilian  Indians 
and  the  Aru  Islanders  in  the  Malay  Archipelago  (354) ;  and 
Barrow  says  that  some  of  the  Hottentot  girls  have  beautiful 
figures  when  .young — every  joint  and  limb  well  turned.  But 
as  we  shall  see  presently,  the  criterion  of  personal  charm 
among  Hottentots,  as  among  savages  in  general,  is  fat,  not 
what  we  call  beauty.  Ugliness,  whether  natural  or  inflicted 
by  fashion,  does  not  among  these  races  act  as  a  bar  to  mar- 
riage. "Beauty  is  of  no  estimation  in  either  sex/'  we  read 
regarding  the  Creeks  in  Schoolcraft  (V.,  272):  "  It  is 
strength  or  agility  that  recommends  the  young  man  to  his 
mistress  ;  and  to  be  a  skilful  or  swift  hunter  is  the  highest 
merit  with  the  woman  he  may  choose  for  a  wife."  Belden 
found  that  the  squaws  were  valued  "  only  for  their  strength 
and  ability  to  work,  and  no  account  whatever  is  taken  of 
their  personal  beauty,"  etc.,  etc.  Nor  can  the  fact  that 
savages  kill  deformed  children  be  taken  as  an  indication  of  a 
regard  for  personal  beauty.  Such  children  are  put  out  of  the 
way  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  may  not  become  a  bur- 
den to  the  family  or  the  tribe. 

Advocates  of  the  sexual  selection  theory  make  much  ado 
over  the  fact  that  in  all  countries  the  natives  prefer  their  own 
peculiar  color  and  features — black,  red,  or  yellow,  flat  noses, 


BEAUTY    VERSUS   DECORATION  271 

high  cheek  bones,  thick  lips,  etc. — and  dislike  what  we  con- 
sider beautiful.  But  the  likes  of  these  races  regarding  per- 
sonal appearance  have  no  more  to  do  with  a  sense  of  beauty 
than  their  dislikes.  It  is  merely  a  question  of  habit.  They 
like  their  own  faces  because  they  are  used  to  them,  and  dis- 
like ours  because  they  are  strange.  In  their  aversion  to  our 
faces  they  are  actuated  by  the  same  motive  that  makes  a 
European  child  cry  out  and  run  away  in  terror  at  sight  of  a 
negro — not  because  he  is  ugly,  for  he  may  be  good-looking, 
but  because  he  is  strange. 

Far  from  admiring  such  beauty  as  nature  may  have  given 
them,  the  lower  races  exercise  an  almost  diabolical  ingenuity 
in  obliterating  or  mutilating  it.  Hundreds  of  their  visitors 
have  written  of  certain  tribes  that  they  would  not  be  bad  look- 
ing if  they  would  only  leave  nature  alone.  Not  a  single  feature, 
from  the  feet  to  the  eyeballs,  has  escaped  the 'uglifying  proc- 
ess. "  Nothing  is  too  absurd  or  hideous  to  please  them," 
writes  Cameron.  The  Eskimos  afford  a  striking  illustration 
of  the  fact  that  a  germ  of  taste  for  ornamentation  in  general 
is  an  earlier  manifestation  of  the  esthetic  faculty  than  the 
appreciation  of  personal  beauty  ;  for  while  displaying  consid- 
erable skill  and  ingenuity  in  the  decorations  of  their  clothes, 
canoes,  and  weapons,  they  mutilate  their  persons  in  various 
ways  and  allow  them  to  be  foul  and  malodorous  with  the 
filth  of  years.  One  of  the  most  disgusting  mutilations  on  rec- 
ord is  that  practised  by  the  Indians  of  British  Columbia, 
who  insert  a  piece  of  bone  in  the  lower  lip,  which,  gradually 
enlarged,  makes  it  at  last  project  three  inches.  Bancroft  (I., 
98)  devotes  three  pages  to  the  lip  mutilation  indulged  in  by 
the  Thlinkeet  females.  When  the  operation  is  completed 
and  the  block  is  withdrawn  "  the  lip  drops  down  upon  the 
chin  like  a  piece  of  leather,  displaying  the  teeth,  and  pre- 
senting altogether  a  ghastly  spectacle."  The  lower  teeth 
and  gum,  says  one  witness,  are  left  quite  naked  ;  another 
says  that  the  plug  "distorts  every  feature  in  the  lower  part 
of  the  face "  ;  a  third  that  an  old  woman,  the  wife  of  a 
chief,  had  a  lip  "ornament"  so  large  "that  by  a  peculiar 
motion  of  her  under-lip  she  could  almost  conceal  her  whole 


272        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL    BEAUTY 

face  with  it"  ;  and  a  fourth  gives  a  description  of  this 
"abominably  revolting  spectacle,"  which  is  too  nauseating 
to  quote. 

DE   GUSTIBUS   NOtf   EST   DISPUTANDUM    (?) 

"Abominably  revolting,"  "  hideous,"  "filthy/'  "disgust- 
ing," "atrocious" — such  are  usually  the  words  of  observers 
in  describing  these  shocking  mutilations.  Nevertheless  they 
always  apply  the  word  "ornamentation"  to  them,  with  the 
implication  that  the  savages  look  upon  them  as  beautiful,  al- 
though all  that  the  observers  had  a  right  to  say  was  that  they 
pleased  the  savages  and  were  approved  by  fashion.  What  is 
worse,  the  philosophers  fell  into  the  pitfall  thus  dug  for  them. 
Darwin  thinks  that  the  mutilations  indulged  in  by  savages 
show  "how  different  is  the  standard  of  taste" ;  Humboldt 
(III.,  236)  reflects  on  the  strange  fact  that  nations  "attach 
the  idea  of  beauty "  to  whatever  configuration  nature  has 
given  them  ;  and  Ploss  (I.,  48)  declares  bluntly  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  an  absolute  standard  of  beauty  and  that 
savages  have  "just  as  much  right "  to  their  ideas  on  the 
subject  as  we  have  to  admire  a  madonna  of  Raphael.  This 
view,  indeed,  is  generally  held  ;  it  is  expressed  in  the  old  saw, 
De  gustibus  non  est  disputandum.  Now  it  is  true  that  it  is 
unwise  to  dispute  about  tastes  conversationally ;  but  scien- 
tifically speaking,  that  old  saw  has  not  a  sound  tooth  in  it. 

If  a  peasant  who  has  never  had  an  opportunity  to  cultivate 
his  musical  sense  insisted  that  a  certain  piano  was  exquisite- 
ly in  tune  and  had  as  beautiful  a  tone  as  any  other  piano, 
whereas  an  expert  musician  declared  that  it  had  a  shrill  tone 
and  was  terribly  out  of  tune,  would  anybody  be  so  foolish  as 
to  say  that  the  peasant  had  as  much  right  to  his  opinion  as 
the  musician  ?  Or  if  an  Irish  toper  declared  that  a  bottle  of 
Chambertin,  over  which  French  epicures  smacked  their  lips, 
was  insipid  and  not  half  as  fine  as  the  fusel-oil  on  which  he 
daily  got  drunk,  would  not  everybody  agree  that  the  Irish- 
man was  no  judge  of  liquors,  and  that  the  reason  why  he 
preferred  his  cheap  whiskey  to  the  Burgundy  was  that  his 
nerves  of  taste  were  too  coarse  to  detect  the  subtle  and  exqui- 


DE    GUSTIBUS    NON    EST    DISPUTANDUM       273 

site  bouquet  of  the  French  wine  ?  In  both  these  examples  we 
are  concerned  only  with  simple  questions  of  sense  percep- 
tion ;  yet  in  the  matter  of  personal  beauty,  which  involves 
not  only  the  senses,  but  the  imagination,  the  intellect,  and  the 
subtlest  feelings,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  any  savage  who 
has  never  seen  a  woman  but  those  of  his  own  race  has  as 
much  right  to  his  opinion'as  a  Ruskin  or  a  Titian,  who  have 
given  their  whole  life  to  the  study  of  beauty  ! 

If  an  astronomer — to  take  another  illustration — were  told 
that  de  astronomia  non  est  disputandum,  and  that  the 
Namaquas,  who  believe  that  the  moon  is  made  of  bacon,  or 
the  Brazilian  tribes  who  think  that  an  eclipse  consists  in  an 
attempt  on  the  part  of  a  monstrous  jaguar  to  swallow  the 
sun — have  as  much  right  to  their  opinion  as  he  has,  he 
would  consider  the  person  who  advanced  such  an  argument 
either  a  wag  or  a  fool.  Only  a  wag  or  a  fool,  again,  would 
argue  that  a  Fijian  has  just  as  much  right  as  we  have  to  his 
opinions  on  medical  matters,  or  on  the  morality  of  polygamy, 
infanticide,  and  cannibalism.  Yet  when  we  come  across  a 
dirty,  malodorous  savage,  so  stupid  that  he  cannot  count  ten, 
who  mutilates  every  part  of  his  body  till  he  has  lost  near- 
ly all  semblance  to  a  human  being,  we  are  soberly  asked  to 
look  upon  this  as  merely  a  "  difference  in  the  standard  of 
esthetic  taste,"  and  to  admit  that  the  savage  has  "  as  much 
right  to  his  taste,"  as  we  have.  The  more  I  think  of  it,  the 
more  I  am  amazed  at  this  unjust  and  idiotic  discrimination 
against  the  esthetic  faculty — a  discrimination  for  which  I 
can  find  no  other  explanation  than  the  fact  already  referred 
to,  that  most  men  of  science  know  so  much  less  abou  t  matters 
of  beauty  than  about  everything  else  in  the  world.  They 
labor  under  the  delusion  that  the  sense  of  beauty  is  one  of 
the  earliest  products  of  mental  evolution,  whereas  .their  own 
attitude  in  the  matter  affords  painful  proof  that  it  is  one  of 
the  latest.  They  will  understand  some  day  that  a  steatopy- 
gous  "Hottentot  Venus"  is  no  more  beautiful  because  an 
African  finds  her  attractive,  than  an  ugly,  bloated,  blear-eyed 
harlot  is  beautiful  because  she  pleases  a  drunken  libertine. 

What  makes  the  traditional  attitude  of  scientific   men  in 


274        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL    BEAUTY 

this  matter  the  less  pardonable  is  that — as  we  have  seen — 
there  is  always  a  simple,  practical  explanation  for  the  predi- 
lections of  these  savages,  so  that  there  is  no  necessity  what- 
ever for  assuming  the  existence  of  so  paradoxical  and  impos- 
sible a  thing  as  an  esthetic  admiration  of  these  hideous 
deformities.  Thus,  in  regard  to  the  nauseating  lip  "  orna- 
ments "  of  the  Thlinkeets  just  referred  to,  the  testimony 
collected  by  Bancroft  indicates  unmistakably  that  they  are 
approved  of,  perpetuated,  and  aggravated  for  two  reasons — 
both  non-esthetic — namely,  as  indications  of  rank,  and  from 
the  necessity  of  conforming  to  fashion.  Ladies  of  distinc- 
tion, we  read,  increase  the  size  of  their  lip  plug.  Langsdorff 
even  saw  women  " of  very  high  rank"  with  this  " ornament " 
full  five  inches  long  and  three  broad  ;  Dixon  says  the  muti- 
lation is  always  in  proportion  to  the  person's  wealth  ;  and 
Mayne  relates,  in  his  book  on  the  British  Columbia  Indians, 
that  "  a  woman's  rank  among  women  is  settled  according  to 
the  size  of  her  wooden  lip." 


INDIFFERENCE   TO    DIRT 

That  savages  can  have  no  sense  of  personal  beauty  is  further 
proved  by  their  habitual  indifference  to  personal  cleanliness, 
the  most  elementary  and  imperative  of  esthetic  requirements. 
When  we  read  in  McLean  (II.,  153)  that  some  Eskimo  girls 
"  might  pass  as  pretty  if  divested  of  their  filth;"  or  in 
Cranz  (L,  134)  that  "it  is  almost  sickening  to  view  their 
hands  and  faces  smeared  with  grease  .  .  .  and  their 
filthy  clothes  swarming  with  vermin  ; "  and  when  we  further 
read  in  Kotzebue  (II.,  56)  regarding  the  Kalush  that  his 
"  filthy  countrywomen  with  their  lip-trough  .  .  .  often 
awaken  in  him  the  most  vehement  passion,  "  we  realize  viv- 
idly that  that  passion  is  a  coarse  appetite  which  exists  quite 
apart  from,  and  independently  of,  anything  that  might  be 
considered  beautiful  or  ugly. 

The  subject  is  not  a  pleasant  one ;  but  as  it  is  one  of  my 
strongest  arguments,  I  must  be  pardoned  for  giving  some 
more  unsavory  details.  Among  some  of  the  British  Colum- 


INDIFFERENCE    TO    DIRT  275 

bia  Indians  "  pretty  women  may  be  seen  ;  nearly  all  have 
good  eyes  and  hair,  but  the  state  of  filth  in  which  they  live 
generally  neutralizes  any  natural  charms  they  may  possess." 
(Mayne,  277.)  Lewis  and  Clarke  write  (439)  regarding  the 
Chinook  Indians  :  "  Their  broad,  flat  foreheads,  their  falling 
breasts,  their  ill-shaped  limbs,  the  awkwardness  of  their  po- 
sitions, and  the  filth  wliicU  intrudes  through  their  finery — all 
these  render  a  Chinook  or  Clatsop  beauty  in  full  attire  one  of 
the  most  disgusting  objects  in  nature."  Muir  says  of  the 
Mono  Indians  of  the  California  Mountains  (93)  :  "  The  dirt 
on  their  faces  was  fairly  stratified,  and  seemed  so  ancient  and 
so  undisturbed  it  might  also  possess  a  geological  significance." 
Navajo  girls  "  usually  evince  a  catlike  aversion  to  water." 
(Schoolcraft,  IV.,  214.)  Cozzens  relates  (128)  how,  among 
the  Apaches,  "the  sight  of  a  man  washing  his  face  and 
hands  almost  convulsed  them  with  laughter."  He  adds  that 
their  personal  appearance  explained  their  surprise.  Burton 
(80)  found  among  the  Sioux  a  dislike  to  cleanliness  "  which 
nothing  but  the  fear  of  the  rod  will  subdue."  "In  an  In- 
dian village,"  writes  Neill  (79),  "  all  is  filth  and  litter.  .  .  . 
Water,  except  in  very  warm  weather,  seldom  touches  their 
bodies." 

The  Comanches  are  "  disgustingly  filthy  in  their  persons." 
(Schoolcraft,  I.,  235.)  The  South  American  Waraus  "are 
exceedingly  dirty  and  disgusting  in  their  habits,  and  their 
children  are  so  much  neglected  that  their  fingers  and  toes  are 
frequently  destroyed  by  vermin."  (Bernau,  35.)  The  Pata- 
gonians  "are  excessively  filthy  in  their  personal  habits." 
(Bourne,  56.)  The  Mundrukus  "  are  very  dirty  "  (Markham, 
172),  etc. 

Of  the  Damara  negroes,  Anderson  says  (N.,  50) :  "  Dirt  of- 
ten accumulates  to  such  a  degree  on  their  persons  as  to  make 
the  color  of  their  skins  totally  undistinguishable  ; "  and  Galton 
(92)  "  could  find  no  pleasure  in  associating  or  trying  to  chat 
with  these  Damaras,  they  were  so  filthy  and  disgusting  in  every 
way."  Thugiberg  writes  of  the  Hottentots  (73)  that  they 
"  find  a  peculiar  pleasure  in  filth  and  stench  ;"  wherein  they 
resemble  Africans  in  general.  Griffith  declares  that  the  hill 


276        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

tribes  of  India  are  "  the  dirtier  the  farther  we  advance ; " 
elsewhere  1  we  read  : 

"  Both  males  and  females,  as  a  class,  are  very  dirty  and 
filthy  in  both  person  and  habits.  They  appear  to  have  an 
antipathy  to  bathing,  and  to  make  matters  worse,  they  have 
a  habit  of  anointing  their  bodies  with  ghee  (melted  butter)  ;" 
and  of  another  of  these  tribes  :  "  The  Karens  are  a  dirty 
people.  They  never  use  soap,  and  their  skins  are  enamelled 
with  dirt.  When  water  is  thrown  oil  them,  it  rolls  off  their 
backs  like  globules  of  quicksilver  on  a  marble  slab.  To  them 
bathing  has  a  cooling,  but  no  cleansing  effect." 

The  Mishinis  are  "disgustingly  dirty."  By  the  Kirgliez 
"  uncleanliness  is  elevated  into  a  virtue  hallowed  by  tra- 
dition." The  Kalmucks  are  described  as  filthy,  the  Kamt- 
schadales  as  exceedingly  so,  etc. 


REASONS   FOB   BATHING. 

Among  the  inhabitants  of  the  islands  of  the  Pacific  we 
meet  with  apparent  exceptions.  These  natives  are  practically 
amphibious,  spending  half  their  time  in  the  ocean,  and  are 
therefore  of  necessity  clean.  So  are  certain  coast  negroes  and 
Indian  tribes  living  along  river-banks.  But  Ellis  (Pol.  Res., 
I.,  110)  was  shrewd  enough  to  sec  that  the  habit  of  frequent 
bathing  indulged  in  by  the  South  Sea  Islanders  was  a  luxury 
— a  result  of  the  hot  climate — and  not  an  indication  of  the 
virtue  of  cleanliness.  In  this  respect  Captain  Cook  showed 
less  acumen,  for  he  remarks  (II.,  148)  that  "nothing  appears 
to  give  them  greater  pleasure  than  personal  cleanliness,  to 
produce  which  they  frequently  bathe  in  ponds."  His  con- 
fusion of  ideas  is  made  apparent  in  the  very  next  sentence, 
where  he  adds  that  the  water  in  most  of  these  ponds  "  stinks 
intolerably."  That  it  is  merely  the  desire  for  comfort  and 
sport  that  induces  the  Polynesians  to  bathe  so  much  is 
proved  further  by  the  attitude  of  the  New  Zealanders. 
Hawksworth  declares  (III.,  451)  that  they  "stink  like  Hot- 
tentots;" and  the  reason  lies  in  the  colder  cjimate  which 

i  Trans.   Eth.  Hoc.,  London,  N.  S.,  VII.,  238;  Journ.  Asiatic  Soc.  Bengal, 
XXXV.,  Pt.  II,  2:>.     Spencer,  D.  S. 


CORPULENCE    VERSUS    BEAUTY  277 

makes  bathing  less  of  a  luxury  to  them.  The  Micronesians 
also  spend  much  of  their  time  in  the  water,  for  comfort,  not 
for  cleanliness.  Gerland  cites  grewsome  details  of  their  misti- 
ness. (\Vaitz,  V.,  Pt.  II.,  81, 188.)  The  Kaffirs,  says  Gardiner 
(101),  "although  far  from  cleanly,"  are  fond  of  bathing.  In 
some  other  cases  the  water  is  sought  for  its  warmth  instead 
of  its  coolness.  In  Brazil  the  morning  air  is  much  colder 
than  the  water,  wherefore  the  natives  take  to  the  river  for 
comfort,  as  the  Japanese  do  in  winter  to  their  hot  tubs.  All 
Indians,  says  Bancroft  (I.,  83),  "  attach  great  importance  to 
their  sweatbaths,"  not  for  cleanliness  —  for  they  are  "ex- 
tremely filthy  in  their  persons  and  habits  " — but  "as  a  re- 
medial measure." 

Unless  they  happen  to  indulge  in  bathing  for  comfort,  the 
lowest  of  savages  are  also  the  dirtiest.  Leigh  writes  (147)  that 
in  South  Australia  many  of  the  women,  including  the  wives 
of  chiefs,  had  "sore  eyes  from  the  smoke,  the  filth,  and  their 
abominable  want  of  cleanliness."  Sturt  (II.,  53)  refers  to 
the  Australian  women  as  "disgusting  objects."  At  funerals, 
"  the  women  besmear  themselves  with  the  most  disgusting 
filth."  The  naked  boys  in  Taplin's  school  "had  no  notion 
of  cleanliness."  The  youths  from  the  age  of  ten  to  sixteen  or 
seventeen  were  compelled  by  custom  to  let  their  hair  grow, 
the  result  being  "  a  revolting  mass  of  tangled  locks  and 
filth."  (Woods,  20,  85.)  Sturt  sums  up  his  impressions  by 
declaring  (II.,  12G)  :  "  Really,  the  loathsome  condition  and 
hideous  countenances  of  the  women  would,  I  should  imagine, 
have  been  a  complete  antidote  to  the  sexual  passion." 


CORPULENCE   VERSUS   BEAUTY 

An  instructive  instance  of  the  loose  reasoning  which  pre- 
vails in  the  esthetic  sphere  is  provided  by  the  Rev.  H.  N. 
Hutchinson,  in  his  Marriage  Customs  in  Many  Lands. 
After  describing  some  of  the  customs  of  the  Australians,  he 
goes  on  to  say  :  "  One  would  think  that  such  degraded  creat- 
ures as  these  men  are  would  be  quite  incapable  of  appreciat- 
ing female  beauty,  but  that  is  not  the  case.  Good-looking 


278       ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

girls  are  much  admired  and  consequently  frequently  stolen 
away/'  As  a  matter  of  fact,  beauty  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  stealing  of  the  women.  The  real  motive  is  revealed  in 
the  following  passage  from  Brough  Smyth  (79) : 

"  A  very  fat  woman  presents  such  an  attractive  appear- 
ance to  the 'eyes  of  the  blacks  that  she  is  always  liable  to 
be  stolen.  However  old  and  ugly  she  may  be,  she  will  be 
courted  and  petted  and  sought  for  by  the  warriors,  who 
seldom  hesitate  to  risk  their  lives  if  there  is  a  chance  for 
obtaining  so  great  a  prize." 

An  Australian  Shakspere  obviously  would  have  written 
"  Fat  provoketh  thieves  sooner  than  gold/'  instead  of  "  beauty 
provoketh  thieves."  And  the  amended  maxim  applies  to 
savages  in  general,  as  well  as  to  barbarians  and  Orientals.  In 
his  Savage  Life  in  Polynesia,  the  Rev.  W.  W.  Gill  remarks  : 

"  The  great  requisites  for  a  Polynesian  beauty  are  to  be  fat 
and  as  fair  as  their  dusky  skins  will  permit.  To  insure  this, 
favorite  children,  whether  boys  or  girls,  were  regularly  fat- 
tened and  imprisoned  till  nightfall  when  a  little  gentle  exer- 
cise was  permitted.  If  refractory,  the  guardian  would  whip 
the  culprit  for  not  eating  more." 1 

American  Indians  do  not  differ  in  this  respect  from 
Australians  and  Polynesians.  The  horrible  obesity  of  the 
squaws  on  the  Pacific  Coast  used  to  inspire  me  with  disgust,  as 
a  boy,  and  I  could  not  understand  how  anyone  could  marry 
such  fat  abominations.  Concerning  the  South  American 
tribes,  Humboldt  says  (Trav.,  L,  301)  :  "  In  several  lan- 
guages of  these  countries,  to  express  the  beauty  of  a  woman, 
they  say  that  she  is  fat,  and  has  a  narrow  forehead." 


FATTENING    GIRLS    FOR   THE   MARRIAGE   MARKET 

The  population  of  Africa  comprises  hundreds  of  different 
peoples  and  tribes,  the  vast  majority  of  whom  make  bulk 
and  weight  the  chief  criterion  of  a  woman's  charms.  The 

1  In  Fiji  fatness  is  also  "a  mark  of  high  rank,  for  these  people  can  only 
imagine  one  reason  for  any  person  being  thin  and  spare,  namely,  not  having 
enough  to  eat."  (W.  J.  Smythe,  166.) 


FATTENING    GIRLS    FOR    THE    MARKET       279 

hideous  deformity  known  as  steatopyga,  or  hypertrophy  of 
the  buttocks,  occurs  among  South  African  Bushman,  Ko- 
ranna,  and  Hottentot  women.  Darwin  says  that  Sir  Andrew 
Smith 

'*  once  saw  a  woman  who  was  considered  a  beauty,  and 
she  was  so  immensely  developed  behind  that  when  seated 
on  level  ground  she  could  not  rise,  and  had  to  push  her- 
self along  until  she  came  to  a  slope.  Some  of  the  women 
in  various  negro  tribes  have  the  same  peculiarity ;  and 
according  to  Burton,  the  Somal  men,  '  are  said  to  choose  their 
wives  by  ranging  them  in  a  line  and  by  picking  her  out  who 
projects  farthest  a  tergo.  Nothing  can  be  more  hateful  to  a 
negro  than  the  opposite  form."1 

The  notions  of  the  Yoruba  negroes  regarding  female  per- 
fection consist,,  according  to  Lander,  in  "the  bulk,  plump- 
ness, and  rotundity  of  the  object/' 

Among  the  Karague,  women  were  exempted  from  hard  labor 
because  the  men  were  anxious  to  have  them  as  fat  as  possible. 
To  please  the  men,  they  ate  enormous  quantities  of  bananas 
and  drank  milk  by  the  gallon.  Three  of  Rumanika's  wives 
were  so  fat  that  they  could  not  go  through  an  ordinary  door, 
and  when  they  walked  they  needed  two  men  each  to  support 
them. 

Speke  measured  one  of  the  much-admired  African  won- 
ders of  obesity,  who  was  unable  to  stand  except  on  all  fours. 
Result  :  around  the  arms,  1  foot  11  inches  ;  chest,  4  feet 

4  inches  ;  thigh,  2  feet  7  inches  ;  calf,  Ifoot  8  inches ;  height, 

5  feet  8  inches. 

"  Meanwhile,  the  daughter,  a  lass  of  sixteen,  sat  stark- 
naked  before  us,  sucking  at  a  milk -pot,  on  which  her  father 
kept  her  at  work  by  holding  a  rod  in  his  hand ;  for  as  fat- 
tening is  the  first  duty  of  fashionable  female  life,  it  must 
be  duly  enforced  by  the  rod-  if  necessary.  I  got  up  a  bit  of 
flirtation  with  missy,  and  induced  her  to  rise  and  shake  hands 
with  me.  Her  features  were  lovely,  but  her  body  was  round 
as  a  ball/' 

1  Yet  Westermarck  has  the  audacity  to  remark  (259),  that  natural  deformity 
and  the  unsymmetrical  shape  of  the  body  are  il  regarded  by  every  race  as  un- 
favorable to  personal  appearance  "  ! 


280        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

Speke  also  tells  (370)  of  a  girl  who,  a  mere  child  when  the 
king  died,  was  such  a  favorite  of  his,  that  he  left  her  twenty 
cows,  in  order  that  she  might  fatten  upon  milk  after  her  na- 
tive fashion. 

ORIENTAL    IDEALS 

Mungo  Park  declared  that  the  Moorish  women 

"  seem  to  be  brought  up  for  no  other  purpose  than  that  of 
ministering  to  the  sensual  pleasures  of  their  imperious  mns- 
ters.  Voluptuousness  is  therefore  considered  as  their  chief 
accomplishment.  .  .  .  The  Moors  have  singular  ideas 
of  feminine  perfection.  The  gracefulness  of  figure  and  mo- 
tion, and  a  countenance  enlivened  by  expression,  are  by  no 
means  essential  points  in  their  standard  :  With  them  cor- 
pulence and  beauty  seem  to  be  terms  nearly  synonymous  :  A 
woman  of  even  moderate  pretensions  must  be  one  who  cannot 
walk  without  a  slave  under  each  arm,  to  support  her  ;  and  a 
perfect  beauty  is  a  load  for  a  camel.  .  .  .  Many  of  the 
young  girls  are  compelled,  by  their  mothers,  to  devour  a 
great  quantity  of  kouskous,  and  drink  a  large  bowl  of 
camel's  milk  every  morning.  ...  I  have  seen  a  poor  girl 
sit  crying,  witli  the  bowl  at  her  lips,  for  more  than  an  hour  ; 
and  her  mother,  with  a  stick  in  her  hand  watching  her  all 
the  while,  and  using  the  stick  without  mercy,  whenever  she 
observed  that  her  daughter  was  not  swallowing." 

A  Somali  love-song  says  :  "  You  are  beautiful  and  your 
limbs  are  fat ;  but  if  you  would  drink  camel's  milk  you 
would  be  still  more  beautiful."  Nubian  girls  are  especially 
fattened  for  their  marriage  by  rubbing  grease  over  them  and 
stuffing  them  with  polenta  and  goat  milk.  When  the 
process  is  completed  they  are  poetically  likened  to  a  hippo- 
potamus. In  Egypt  and  India,  where  the  climate  naturally 
tends  to  make  women  thin,  the  fat  ones  are,  as  in  Australia, 
the  ideals  of  beauty,  as  their  poets  would  make  plain  to  us  if 
it  were  not  known  otherwise.  A  Sanscrit  poet  declares 
proudly  that  his  beloved  is  so  borne  down  by  the  weight  of 
her  thighs  and  breasts  that  she  cannot  walk  fast ;  and  in  the 
songs  of  Hala  there  are  numerous  "  sentiments "  like  that. 
The  Arabian  poet  Amru  declares  rapturously  that  his  fa- 
vorite beauty  has  thighs  so  delightfully  exuberant  that  she 


THE   CONCUPISCENCE   THEORY   OF  BEAUTY     281 

can  scarcely  enter  the  tent  door.  Another  Arabian  poet 
apostrophizes  "  the  maid  of-Okaib,  who  has  haunches  like 
sand-hills,  whence  her  body  rises  like  a  palm-tree."  And 
regarding  the  references  to  personal  appearance  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  ancient  Hebrews,  Eossbach  remarks:  "In  all 
these  descriptions  human  beauty  is  recognized  in  the  luxuri- 
ous fulness  of  parts,  not  in  their  harmony  and  proportion. 
Spiritual  expression  in  the  sensual  form  is  not  adverted  to" 
(238). 

Thus,  from  the  Australian  and  the  Indian  to  the  Hebrew, 
the  Arab,  and  the  Hindoo,  what  pleases  the  men  in  women  is 
not  their  beauty,  but  their  voluptuous  rotundity  ;  they  care 
only  for  those  sensual  aspects  which  emphasize  the  difference 
between  the  sexes.  The  object  of  the  modern  wasp  waist  (in 
the  minds  of  the  class  of  females  who,  strange  to  say,  are 
allowed  by  respectable  women  to  set  the  fashion  for  them)  is 
to  grossly  exaggerate  the  bust  and  the  hips,  and  it  is  for  the 
same  reason  that  barbarian  and  Oriental  girls  are  fattened  for 
the  marriage  market.  The  appeal  is  to  the  appetite,  not  to 
the  esthetic  sense. 


THE  CONCUPISCENCE  THEORY  OF  BEAUTY 

In  writing  this  I  do  not  ignore  the  fact  that  many  authors 
have  held  that  personal  beauty  and  sensuality  are  practically 
identical  or  indissolubly  associated.  The  sober  philosopher, 
Bain,  gravely  advances  the  opinion  that,  on  the  whole,  per- 
sonal beauty  turns,  1,  upon  qualities  and  appearances  that 
heighten  the  expression  of  favor  or  good-will  ;  and,  2,  upon 
qualities  and  appearances  that  suggest  the  endearing  embrace. 
Eckstein  expresses  the  same  idea  more  coarsely  by  saying 
that  "  finding  a  thing  beautiful  is  simply  another  way  of  ex- 
pressing the  manifestation  of  the  sexual  appetite."  But  it 
remained  for  Mantegazza  to  give  this  view  the  most  cynical 
expression  :  "  We  look  at  woman  through  the  prism  of  de- 
sire, and  she  looks  at  us  in  the  same  way  ;  her  beauty  ap- 
pears to  us  the  more  perfect  the  more  it  arouses  our  sexual 
desires — that  is,  the  more  voluptuous  enjoyment  the  posses- 


282        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

sion  of  her  promises  us."    He  adds  that  for  this  reason  a  man 
of  twenty  finds  nearly  all  women  beautiful. 

Thus  the  beauty  of  a  woman,  in  the  opinion  of  these 
writers,  consists  in  those  physical  qualities  which  arouse  a 
man's  concupiscence.  I  admit  that  this  theory  applies  to 
savages  and  to  Orientals  ;  the  details  given  in  the  preceding 
pages  prove  that.  It  applies  also,  I  must  confess,  to  the 
majority  of  Europeans  and  Americans.  I  have  paid  special 
attention  to  this  point  in  various  countries  and  have  noticed 
that  a  girl  with  a  voluptuous  though  coarse  figure  and  a 
plain  face  will  attract  much  more  masculine  attention  than  a 
girl  whose  figure  and  face  are  artistically  beautiful  without 
being  voluptuous.  But  this  only  helps  to  prove  my  main 
thesis — that  the  sense  of  personal  beauty  is  one  of  the  latest 
products  of  civilization,  rare  even  at  the  present  day.  What 
I  deny  most  emphatically  is  that  the  theory  advocated  by 
Bain,  Eckstein,  and  Mantegazza  applies  to  those  persons  who 
are  so  lucky  as  to  have  a  sense  of  beauty.  These  fortunate 
individuals  can  admire  the  charms  of  a  living  beauty  without 
any  more  concupiscence  or  thought  of  an  endearing  embrace 
than  accompanies  their  contemplation  of  the  Venus  de  Milo 
or  a  Madonna  painted  by  Murillo  ;  and  if  they  are  in  love 
with  a  particular  girl  their  admiration  of  her  beauty  is  su- 
perlatively free  from  carnal  ingredients,  as  we  saw  in  the 
section  on  Mental  Purity.  Since  in  such  a  question  per- 
sonal evidence  is  of  importance,  I  will  add  that,  fortunately, 
I  have  been  deeply  in  love  several  times  in  my  life  and  can 
therefore  testify  that  each  time  my  admiration  of  the  girl's 
beauty  was  as  purely  esthetic  as  if  she  had  been  a  flower. 
In  each  case  the  mischief  was  begun  by  a  pair  of  brown 
eyes. 

Eyes,  it  is  true,  can  be  as  wanton  and  as  voluptuous  as 
a  plump  figure.  Powers  notes  (20)  that  some  California 
Indian  girls  are  pretty  and  have  "  large,  voluptuous  eyes." 
Such  eyes  are  common  among  the  lower  races  and  Orientals  ; 
but  they  are  not  the  eyes  which  inspire  romantic  love.  Lips, 
too,  it  might  be  said,  invite  kisses  ;  but  a  lover  would  con- 
sider it  sacrilege  to  touch  his  idol's  lips  unchastely.  Sav- 


UTILITY    IS   NOT   BEAUTY  283 

ages  are  strangers  to  kissing  for  the  exactly  opposite  rea- 
son— that  it  is  too  refined  a  detail  of  sensuality  to  appeal  to 
their  coarse  nerves.  How  far  they  are  from  being  able  to  ap- 
preciate lips  esthetically  appears  from  the  way  in  which  they 
so  often  deform  them.  The  mouth  is  peculiarly  the  index 
of  mental  and  moral  refinement,  and  a  refined  pair  of  lips  can 
inspire  as  pure  a  love  as  the  celestial  beauty  of  innocent 
eyes.  As  for  the  other  features,  what  is  there  to  suggest  las- 
civious thoughts  in  a  clear  complexion,  an  oval  chin,  ivory 
teeth,  rosy  cheeks,  or  in  curved  eyebrows,  long,  dark  lashes, 
or  flowing  tresses  ?  Our  admiration  of  these,  and  of  a  grace- 
ful gait,  is  as  pure  and  esthetic — as  purely  esthetic — as  our 
admiration  of  a  sunset,  a  flower,  a  humming-bird,  a  lovely 
child.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  a  girl's  marriage  chances 
have  been  made  or  marred  by  the  size  or  shape  of  her  nose. 
What  has  the  size  or  shape  of  a  girl's  nose  to  do  with  the 
"endearing  embrace?"  This  question  alone  reduces  the 
concupiscence  theory  ad  absurdum. 


UTILITY   IS    NOT   BEAUTY 

Almost  as  repulsive  as  the  view  which  identifies  the  sense 
of  personal  beauty  with  concupiscence  is  that  which  would 
reduce  it  to  a  matter  of  coarse  utility.  Thus  Eckstein,  mis- 
led by  Schopenhauer,  holds  that  healthy  teeth  are  beautiful 
for  the  reason  that  they  guarantee  the  proper  mastication 
of  the  food ;  while  small  breasts  are  ugly  because  they  do 
not  promise  sufficient  nourishment  to  the  child  that  is  to  be 
born. 

This  argument  is  refuted  by  the  simple  statement  that  our 
teeth,  if  they  looked  like  rusty  nails,  might  be  even  more 
useful  than  now,  but  could  no  longer  be  beautiful.  As  for 
women's  breasts,  if'utility  were  tht  criterion,  the  most  beau- 
tiful would  be  those  of  the  African  mothers  who  can  throw 
them  over  their  shoulders  to  suckle  the  infants  on  their  backs 
without  impeding  their  work.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  love- 
liest breast  is  the  virginal,  which  serves  no  use  while  it  re- 
mains so.  A  dray  horse  is  infinitely  more  useful  to  us  than 


284        ROMANTIC    LOVE— PERSONAL    BEAUTY 

an  Arab  racer,  but  is  he  as  beautiful  ?  Tigers  and  snakes  are 
anything  but  useful  to  the  human  race,  but  we  consider  their 
skins  beautiful. 


A   NEW   SENSE   EASILY   LOST   AGAIN 

No,  the  sense  of  personal  beauty  is  neither  a  synonyme  for 
libidinous  desires  nor  is  it  based  on  utilitarian  considerations. 
It  is  practically  a  new  sense,  born  of  mental  refinement  and 
imagination.  It  by  no  means  scorns  a  slight  touch  of  the 
voluptuous,  so  far  as  it  does  not  exceed  the  limits  of  artistic 
taste  and  moral  refinement — a  well-rounded  figure  and  "  a  face 
voluptuous,  yet  pure" — but  it  is  an  entirely  different  thing 
from  the  predilection  for  fat  and  other  coarse  exaggerations 
of  sexuality  which  inspire  lust  instead  of  love.  This  new 
sense  is  still,  as  I  have  said,  rare  everywhere ;  and,  like  the 
other  results  of  high  and  recent  culture,  itis  easily  obliterated. 
In  his  treatise  on  insanity  Professor  Krafft-Ebing  shows  that 
in  degeneration  of  the  brain  the  esthetic  and  moral  qualities 
are  among  the  first  to  disappear.  It  is  the  same  with 
normal  man  when  he  descends  into  a  lower  sphere.  Zoller 
relates  (III.,  68)  that  when  Europeans  arrive  in  Africa  they 
find  the  women  so  ugly  they  can  hardly  look  at  them  without 
a  feeling  of  repulsion.  Gradually  they  become  habituated  to 
their  sight,  and  finally  they  are  glad  to  accept  them  as  com- 
panions. Stanley  has  an  eloquent  passage  on  the  same  topic 
(H.  I.  F.  L.,  265)  : 

"  The  eye  that  at  first  despised  the  unclassic  face  of  the 
black  woman  of  Africa  soon  loses  its  regard  for  fine  lines  and 
mellow  pale  color  ;  it  finds  itself  ere  long  lingering  wantonly 
over  the  inharmonious  and  heavy  curves  of  a  negroid  form, 
and  looking  lovingly  on  the  broad,  unintellectual  face,  and 
into  jet  eyes  that  never  flash  with  the  dazzling  love-light  that 
makes  poor  humanity  beautiful." 

The  word  I  have  italicized  explains  it  all.  The  sense  of 
personal  beauty  is  displaced  again  by  the  concupiscence  which 
had  held  its  place  in  the  early  history  of  mankind. 


BEAUTIFYING    INTELLIGENCE  285 


MORAL   UGLINESS 

To  realize  fully  what  such  a  relapse  may  mean,  read  what 
Galton  says  (123)  of  the  Hottentots.  They  have 

"  that  peculiar  set  of  features  which  is  so  characteristic  of 
bad  characters  in  England,  and  so  general  among  prisoners 
that  it  is  usually,  I  believe,  known  by  the  name  of  the  '  felon  - 
face ; '  I  mean  that  they  have  prominent  cheek-bones,  bullet- 
shaped  head,  cowering  but  restless  eyes,  and  heavy  sensual 
lips,  and  added  to  this  a  shackling  dress  and  manner." 

Of  the  Damaras  Galton  says  (99)  that  "  their  features  are 
often  beautifully  chiselled,  though  the  expression  in  them  is 
always  coarse  and  disagreeable."  And  to  quote  Mungo  Park 
on  the  Moors  once  more  (158)  : 

"I  fancied  that  I  discovered  in  the  features  of  most  of 
them  a  disposition  toward  cruelty  and  low  cunning.  .  . 
From  the  staring  wildness  of  their  eyes,  a  stranger  would  im- 
mediately set  them  down  as  a  nation  of  lunatics.  The 
treachery  and  malevolence  of  their  character  are  manifested 
in  their  plundering  excursions  against  the  negro  villages." 


BEAUTIFYING    INTELLIGENCE 

Galton's  reference  to  the  Damaras  illustrates  the  well- 
known  fact  that,  even  where  nature  makes  an  effort  at  chisel- 
ling beautiful  features  the  result  is  a  failure  if  there  is  no 
moral  and  intellectual  culture  to  inspire  them,  and  this  puts 
the  grave-stone  on  the  Concupiscence  Theory — for  what  have 
moral  and  intellectual  culture  to  do  with  carnal  desires  ?  A 
noble  soul  even  possesses  the  magic  power  of  transforming  a 
plain  face  into  a  radiant  vision  of  beauty,  the  emotion  chang- 
ing not  only  the  expression  but  the  lines  of  the  face.  Goethe 
(Eckermann,  1824)  and  others  have  indeed  maintained  that 
intellect  in  a  woman  does  not  help  a  man  to  fall  in  love  with 
her.  This  is  true  in  so  far  as  brains  in  a  woman  will  not 
make  a  man  fall  in  love  with  her  if  she  is  otherwise  unat- 
tractive or  unfeminine.  But  Goethe  forgot  that  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  hereditary  intellectual  culture  incarnated  in  the 


286       ROMANTIC   LOVE— PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

face.     This,  I  maintain,  makes  up  more  than  half  of  the 

personal  beauty  which  makes  a  man  fall  in  love.     A  girl  with 

good  features  is  twice  as  beautiful  if  she  is  morally  pure  and 

has  a  bright  mind.     Sometimes  a  face  is  accidentally  moulded 

into  such  a  regular  beauty  of  form  that  it  seems  to  mirror 

mental  beauty  too.     A  man  may  fall  in  love  with  such  a  face, 

but  as  soon  as  he  finds  out  that  it  is  inhabited  by  a  stupid  or 

coarse  mind  he  will  make  haste  to  fall  out  again,  unless  his 

\    love  was  predominantly  sensual.     I  remember  once  falling  in 

I   love  with  a  country  girl  at  first  sight ;  her  face  and   figure 

I  seemed  to  me  extremely  beautiful,  except  that  hard  work  had 

1  enlarged  and  hardened  her  hands.     But  when  I  found  that 

her  intellect  was  as  coarse  as  her  hands,  my  ardor  cooled  at 

\  once. 

If  intellect,  as  revealed  in  the  face,  in  words,  and  in  ac- 
tions, did  not  assist  in  inspiring  the  amorous  sentiment,  it 
would  be  as  easy  to  fall  in  love  with  a  doll-faced,  silly  girl 
as  with  a  woman  of  culture  ;  it  would  even  be  possible  to  fall 
in  love  with  a  statue  or  with  a  demented  person.  Let  us 
imagine  a  belle  who  is  thrown  from  a  horse  and  has  become 
insane  from  the  shock.  For  a  time  her  features  will  remain 
as  regular,  her  figure  as  plump,  as  before  ;  but  the  mind  will 
be  gone,  and  with  it  everything  that  could  make  a  man  fall 
in  love  with  her.  Who  has  ever  heard  of  a  beautiful  idiot, 
of  anyone  falling  in  love  with  an  imbecile  ?  The  vacant  stare, 
the  absence  of  intellect,  make  beauty  and  love  alike  impos- 
sible in  such  a  case. 


THE   STRANGE   GREEK   ATTITUDE 

The  important  corollary  follows,  from  all  this,  that  in  coun- 
tries where  women  receive  no  education  sensual  love  is  the 
only  kind  men  can  feel  toward  them.  Oriental  women  are  of 
that  kind,  and  so  were  the  ancient  Greeks.  The  Greeks  are 
indeed  renowned  for  their  statuary,  yet  their  attitude  toward 
personal  beauty  was  of  a  very  peculiar  kind.  Their  highest 
ideal  was  not  the  feminine  but  the  masculine  type,  and  ac- 
cordingly we  find  that  it  was  toward  men  only  that  they 


DEFINITION   OF   LOVE  287 

professed  to  feel  a  noble  passion.  The  beauty  of  the  women 
was  regarded  merely  from  a  sensual  point  of  view.  Their 
respectable  women  were  deliberately  left  without  education, 
wherefore  their  charms  can  have  been  at  best  of  a  bodily  kind 
and  capable  of  inspiring  love  of  body  only.  There  is  a  prev- 
alent superstition  that  the  Greeks  of  the  day  of  Perikles  had 
a  class  of  intelligent  women  known  as  hetairai,  who  were 
capable  of  being  true  companions  and  inspirers  of  men  ;  but 
I  shall  show,  in  a  later  chapter,  that  the  mentality  of  these 
women  has  been  ludicrously  exaggerated;  they  were  coarse 
and  obscene  in  their  wit  and  conversation,  and  their  morals 
were  such  that  no  man  could  have  respected  them,  much 
less  loved  them  with  a  pure  affection ;  while  the  men  whom 
they  are  supposed  to  have  inspired  were  in  most  cases  volupt- 
uaries of  the  most  dissolute  sort. 


A  COMPOSITE  AND  VARIABLE   SENTIMENT 

Our  attempt  to  answer  the  question  "What  is  romantic 
love,"  has  taken  up  no  fewer  than  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  pages,  and  even  this  answer  is  a  mere  preliminary  sketch, 
the  details  of  which  will  be  supplied  in  the  following  chapters, 
chiefly,  it  is  true,  in  a  negative  way,  by  showing  what  is  not 
romantic  love  ;  for  the  subject  of  this  book  is  Primitive  Love. 


DEFINITION   OF   LOVE 

Can  love  be  defined  in  one  sentence  ?  The  Century  Die- 
tionary's  definition,  which  is  as  good  as  any,  is  :  "  Intimate 
personal  affection  between  individuals  of  opposite  sex  capa- 
ble of  intermarriage  ;  the  emotional  incentive  to  and  normal 
basis  of  conjugal  union/'  This  is  correct  enough  as  far  as  it 
goes  ;  but  how  little  it  tells  us  of  the  nature  of  love  !  I  have 
tried  repeatedly  to  condense  the  essential  traits  of  romantic 
love  into  one  brief  definition,  but  have  not  succeeded.  Per- 
haps the  following  will  serve  as  an  approximation.  Love 


288  ROMANTIC   LOVE— A   COMPOSITE   SENTIMENT 

is  an  intense  longing  for  the  reciprocal  affection  and  jealously 
exclusive  possession  of  a  particular  individual  of  the  opposite 
sex  ;  a  chaste,  proud,  ecstatic  adoration  of  one  who  appears 
a  paragon  of  personal  beauty  and  otherwise  immeasurably 
superior  to  all  other  persons  ;  an  emotional  state  constantly 
hovering  between  doubt  and  hope,  aggravated  in  the  female 
heart  by  the  fear  of  revealing  her  feelings  too  soon  ;  a  self- 
forgetful  impulse  to  share  the  tastes  and  feelings  of  the  be- 
loved, and  to  go  so  far  in  affectionate  and  gallant  devotion  as 
to  eagerly  sacrifice,  for  the  other's  good,  all  comfort  and  life 
itself  if  necessary. 

These  are  the  essential  traits.  But  romantic  love  is 
altogether  too  complex  and  variable  to  be  defined  in  one 
sentence  ;  and  it  is  this  complexity  and  variability  that  I 
wish  to  emphasize  particularly.  Eckermann  once  suggested 
to  Goethe  that  no  two  cases  of  love  are  quite  alike,  and  the 
poet  agreed  with  him.  They  did  not,  however,  explain 
their  seeming  paradox,  so  diametrically  opposed  to  the  cur- 
rent notion  that  love  is  everywhere  and  always  the  same,  in 
individuals  as  in  nations ;  nor  could  they  have  explained  it 
unless  they  had  analyzed  love  into  its  component  elements  as 
I  have  done  in  this  volume.  With  the  aid  of  this  analysis  it 
is  easy  to  show  how  and  why  love  has  changed  and  grown, 
like  other  sentiments;  to  explain  how  and  why  the  love  of  a 
civilized  white  man  must  differ  from  that  of  an  Australian  or 
African  savage,  just  as  their  faces  differ.  Since  no  two  races 
look  alike,  and  no  two  individuals  in  the  same  race,  why 
should  their  loves  be  alike  ?  Is  not  love  the  heart  of  the 
soul  and  the  face  merely  its  mirror  ?  Love  is  varied  through 
a  thousand  climatic,  racial,  family,  and  cultural  peculiarities. 
It  is  varied  through  individual  tastes  and  proclivities.  In 
one  case  of  love  admiration  of  personal  beauty  may  be  the 
strongest  ingredient,  in  another  jealous  monopoly,  in  a  third 
self-sacrificing  affection,  and  so  on.  The  permutations  and 
combiriations  are  countless,  and  hence  it  is  that  love-stories 
are  always  fresh,  since  they  can  be  endlessly  varied.  A 
lover's  varied  feelings  in  relation  to  the  beloved  become 
gradually  blended  into  a  sentiment  which  is  a  composite 


WHY    CALLED    ROMANTIC  289 

photograph  of  all  the  emotions  she  has  ever  aroused  in  him. 
This  has  given  rise  to  the  delusion  that  love  is  a  simple 
feeling.1 

WHY   CALLED    ROMANTIC 

In  the  introductory  chapter  of  this  book  I  alluded  briefly 
to  my  reasons  for  calling  pure  prematrimonial  infatuation 
romantic  love,  giving  some  historic  precedents  for  such  a 
use  of  the  word.  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  appreciate  the 
peculiar  appropriateness  of  the  term.  What  is  the  dictionary 
definition  of  "romantic"?  "Pertaining  to  or  resembling 
romance,  or  an  ideal  state  of  things  ;  partaking  of  the  heroic, 
the  marvellous,  the  supernatural,  or  the  imaginative  ;  chi- 
merical, fanciful,  extravagantly  enthusiastic."  Every  one  of 
these  terms  applies  to  love  in  the  sense  in  which  I  use  the 
word.  Love  is  ideal,  heroic,  marvellous,  imaginative,  chi- 
merical, fanciful,  extravagantly  enthusiastic ;  its  hyperbolic 
adoration  even  gives  it  a  supernatural  tinge,  for  the  adored 
girl  seems  more  like  an  angel  or  a  fairy  than  a  common  mor- 
tal. The  lover's  heroine  is  as  fictitious  as  any  heroine  of 
romance  ;  he  considers  her  the  most  beautiful  and  lovable 
person  in  the  world,  though  to  others  she  may  seem  ugly  and 
ill-tempered.  Thus  love  is  called  romantic,  because  it  is  so 
great  a  romancer,  attributing  to  the  beloved  all  sorts  of  per- 
fections which  exist  only  in  the  lover's  fancy.  What  could 
be  more  fantastic  than  a  lover's  stubborn  preference  for  a 
particular  individual  and  his  conviction  that  no  one  ever 
loved  so  frantically  as  he  does  ?  What  more  extravagant  and 
unreasonable  than  his  imperious  desire  to  completely  mo- 
nopolize her  affection,  sometimes  guarding  her  jealously  even 
from  her  girl  friends  or  her  nearest  relatives  ?  What  more 
romantic  than  the  tortures  and  tragedies,  the  mixed  emotions, 

1  It  is  not  strange  that  the  human  race  should  have  ha<l  to  wait  so  long  for 
a  complete  analysis  of  love.  It  is  not  so  very  long  ago  since  Newton  showed 
that  what  was  supposed  to  be  a  simple  white  light  was  really  compounded  of 
all  the  colors  of  the  rainbow;  or  that  Helmholtz  analyzed  sounds  into  their 
partial  tones  of  different  pitch,  which  are  combined  in  what  seems  to  be  a 
simple  tone  of  this  or  that  pitch.  Similarly,  I  have  shown  that  the  pleasures 
of  the  tabl^,  which  everybody  supposes  to  be  simple,  gustatory  sensations 
(matters  of  taste),  are  in  reality  compound  odors.  Se?  my  article  on  "The 
Gastronomic  Value  of  Odors,"  in  the  Contemporary  Review,  1881. 


290     ROMANTIC  LOVE— A  COMPOSITE  SENTIMENT 

that  doubt  or  jealousy  gives  rise  to  ?  Does  not  a  willing  but 
coyly  reserved  maiden  romance  about  her  feelings  ?  What 
could  be  more  fanciful  and  romantic  than  her  shy  reserve  and 
coldness  when  she  is  longing  to  throw  herself  into  the  lover's 
arms  ?  Is  not  her  proud  belief  that  her  lover — probably  as 
commonplace  and  foolish  a  fellow  as  ever  lived — is  a  hero  or 
a  genius  a  romantic  exaggeration  ?  Is  not  the  lover's  purity 
of  imagination,  though  real  as  a  feeling,  a  romantic  illusion, 
since  he  craves  ultimate  possession  of  her  and  would  be  the 
unhappiest  of  mortals  if  she  went  to  a  nunnery,  though  she 
promised  to  love  him  always  ?  What  could  be  more  mar- 
vellous, more  chimerical,  than  this  temporary  suppression  of 
a  strong  appetite  at  the  time  when  it  would  be  supposed  to 
manifest  itself  most  irresistibly — this  distilling  of  the  finer 
emotions,  leaving  all  the  gross,  material  elements  behind  ? 
Can  you  imagine  anything  more  absurdly  romantic  than  the 
gallant  attentions  of  a  man  on  his  knees  before  a  girl  whom, 
with  his  stronger  muscles,  he  could  command  as  a  slave  ? 
Who  but  a  romantic  lover  would  obliterate  his  selfish  ego  in 
sympathetic  devotion  to  another,  trying  to  feel  her  feelings, 
forgetting  his  own  ?  Who  but  a  romantic  lover  would  sacri- 
fice his  life  in  the  effort  to  save  or  please  another  ?  A  mother 
would  indeed  do  the  same  for  her  child  ;  but  the  child  is  of 
her  own  flesh  and  blood,  whereas  the  beloved  may  have  been 
a  stranger  until  an  hour  ago.  How  romantic  ! 

The  appropriateness  of  the  word  romantic  is  still  further 
emphasized  by  the  consideration  that,  just  as  romantic  art, 
romantic  literature,  and  romantic  music  are  a  revolt  against 
artificial  rules  and  barriers  to  the  free  expression  of  feeling, 
so  romantic  love  is  a  revolt  against  the  obstacles  to  free 
matrimonial  choice  imposed  by  parental  and  social  tyranny. 

Indeed,  I  can  see  only  one  objection  to  the  use  of  the 
word — its  frequent  application  to  any  strange  or  exciting  in- 
cidents, whence  some  confusion  may  ensue.  But  the  trouble 
is  obviated  by  simply  bearing  in  mind  the  distinction  between 
romantic  incidents  and  romantic  feelings  which  I  have 
summed  np  in  the  maxim  that  a  romantic  love-story  is  not 
necessarily  a  story  of  romantic  love.  Nearly  all  the  tales 


WHY    CALLED   ROMANTIC  291 

brought  together  in  this  volume  are  romantic  love-stories,  but 
not  one  of  them  is'  a  story  of  romantic  love.  In  the  end  the 
antithesis  will  aid  us  in  remembering  the  distinction. 

In  place  of  "  romantic  "  I  might  have  used  the  word  "  sen- 
timental " ;  but  in  the  first  place  that  word  fails  to  indicate 
the  essentially  romantic  nature  of  love,  on  which  I  have  just 
dwelt ;  and  secondly,  it  also  is  liable  to  be  misunderstood, 
because  of  its  unfortunate  association  with  the  word  senti- 
mentality, which  is  a  very  different  thing  from  sentiment. 
The  differences  between  sentiment,  sentimentality,  and  sen- 
suality are  indeed  important  enough  to  merit  a  brief  chapter 
of  elucidation. 


SENSUALITY,  SENTIMENTALITY,  AND 
SENTIMENT 

FROM  beginnings  not  yet  understood  —  though  Haeckel  and 
others  have  speculated  plausibly  on  the  subject  —  there  has 
been  developed  in  animals  and  human  beings  an  appetite 
which  insures  the  perpetuation  of  the  species  as  the  appetite 
for  food  does  that  of  the  individual.  Both  these  appetites 
pass  through  various  degrees  of  development,  from  the  utmost 
grossness  to  a  high  degree  of  refinement,  from  which,  how- 
ever, relapses  occur  in  many  individuals.  We  read  of  Ind- 
ians tearing  out  the  liver  from  living  animals  and  devouring 
it  raw  and  bloody  ;  of  Eskimos  eating  the  contents  of  a  rein- 
deer's stomach  as  a  vegetable  dish  ;  and  the  books  of  explorers 
describe  many  scenes  like  the  following  from  Baker's  Ismailia 
(275)  relating  to  the  antics  of  negroes  after  killing  a  buffalo  : 

"  There  was  now  an  extraordinary  scene  over  the  carcass  ; 
four  hundred  men  scrambling  over  a  mass  of  blood  and  en- 
trails, fighting  and  tearing  with  each  other  and  cutting  off 
pieces  of  flesh  with  their  lance-heads,  with  which  they  es- 
caped as  dogs  may  retreat  with  a  bone." 


APPETITE   AOT    LONGING 

What  aeons  of  culture  lie  between  such  a  scene  and  a  dinner 
party  in  Europe  or  America,  with  its  refined,  well-behaved 
guests,  its  table  etiquette,  its  varied  menu,  its  choice  viands, 
skilfully  cooked  and  blended  so  as  to  bring  out  the  most 
diverse  and  delicate  flavors,  its  esthetic  features  —  fine  linen 
and  porcelains,  silver  and  cut  glass,  flowers,  lights  —  its  bright 
conversation,  and  flow  of  wit.  Yet  there  are  writers  who 
would  have  us  believe  that  these  Indians,  Eskimos,  and 
Africans,  who  manifest  their  appetite  for  food  in  so  disgust- 
ingly coarse  a  wp,y,  are  in  their  love-affairs  as  sentimental  and 

292 


APPETITE    AND    LONGING  293 

aesthetic  as  we  are  !  In  truth  they  are  as  gross,  gluttonous, 
and  selfish  in  the  gratification  of  one  appetite  as  in  that  of 
the  other.  To  a  savage  a  woman  is  not  an  object  of  chaste 
adoration  and  gallant  devotion,  but  a  mere  bait  for  wanton 
lust ;  and  when  his  lust  hath  dined  he  kicks  her  away  like  a 
mangy  dog  till  he  is  hungry  again.  In  Ploss-Bartels1  may  be 
found  an  abundance  of  facts  culled  from  various  sources  in 
all  parts  of  the  world,  showing  that  the  bestiality  of  many 
savages  is  not  even  restrained  by  the  presence  of.  spectators. 
At  the  phallic  and  bacchanalian  festivals  of  ancient  and 
Oriental  nations  all  distinctions  of  rank  and  all  family  ties 
were  forgotten  in  a  carnival  of  lust.  Licentious  orgies  are 
indeed  carried  on  to  this  day  in  our  own  large  cities  ;  but 
their  participants  are  the  criminal  classes,  and  occasionally 
some  foolish  young  men  who  would  be  very  much  ashamed  to 
have  their  doings  known  ;  whereas  the  orgies  and  phallic 
festivals  of  savages  and  barbarians  are  national  or  tribal  in- 
stitutions, approved  by  custom,  sanctioned  by  religion,  and 
indulged  in  openly  by  every  man  and  woman  in  the  com- 
munity ;  often  regardless  even  of  incest. 

More  shockingly  still  are  the  grossness  and  diabolical  self- 
ishness of  the  savage's  carnal  appetite  revealed  by  his  habit 
of  sacrificing  young  girls  to  it  years  before  they  have  reached 
the  age  of  puberty.  Some  details  will  be  found  in  the 
chapters  on  Australia,  Africa,  and  India.  Here  it  may  be 
noted — to  indicate  the  wide  prevalence  of  a  custom  which  it 
would  be  unjust  to  animals  to  call  bestial,  because  beasts 
never  sink  so  low — that  Borneans,  as  Schwaner  notes,  marry 
off  girls  from  three  to  five;  that  in  Egypt  child-wives  of 
seven  or  eight  can  be  seen  ;  that  Javanese  girls  may  be  mar- 
ried at  seven ;  that  North  American  Indians  often  took 
brides  of  ten  or  eleven,  while  in  Southern  Australia  girls 
were  appropriated  as  early  as  seven.  Hottentot  girls  were 
not  spared  after  the  age  of  seven,  nor  were  Bushman  girls, 
though  they  did  not  become  mothers  till  ten  or  twelve  years 
old  ;  while  Kaffir  girls  married  at  eight,  Soinals  at  six  to 

'  II.,  271-74.     See  also  Zeitschrift  fur  Ethnologic,  1887,  31 ;  Hellwald,  144. 


294          SENSUALITY   AND   SENTIMENTALITY 

eight.  The  cause  of  these  early  marriages  is  not  climatic, 
as  some  fancy,  but  simply,  as  Roberton  has  pointed  out,  the 
coarseness  of  the  men.  The  list  might  be  extended  in- 
definitely. In  Old  Calabar  sometimes,  we  read  in  Ploss,  "  a 
man  who  has  already  several  wives  may  be  seen  with  an  in- 
fant of  two  or  three  weeks  on  his  lap,  caressing  and  kissing  it 
as  his  wife.  Wives  of  four  to  six  years  we  found  occasionally 
(in  China,  Guzuate,  Ceylon,  and  Brazil)  ;  from  seven  to  nine 
years  on  they  are  no  longer  rare,  and  the  years  from  ten  to 
twelve  are  a  widely  prevalent  marriage  age." 

The  amorous  savage  betrays  his  inferiority  to  animals  not 
only  in  his  cruel  maltreatment  of  girls  before  they  have 
reached  the  age  of  puberty,1  but  in  his  ignorance,  in  most 
cases,  of  the  simplest  caresses  and  kisses  for  which  we  often 
find  corresponding  acts  in  birds  and  other  animals.  The 
nerves  of  primitive  men  are  too  coarse  for  such  a  delicate 
sensation  as  labial  contact,  and  an  embrace  would  leave  them 
cold.  An  African  approximation  to  a  kiss  is  described  by 
Baker  (Ismailia,  472).  He  had  liberated  a  number  of  female 
slaves,  and  presently,  he  says,  "  I  found  myself  in  the  arms 
of  a  naked  beauty,  who  kissed  me  almost  to  suffocation,  and, 
with  a  most  unpleasant  embrace,  licked  both  my  eyes  with 
her  tongue."  If  we  may  venture  an  inference  from  Mr. 
A.  H.  Savage  Landor's  experience2  among  the  aboriginal 
Ainos  of  Yezo  (Japan),  one  of  the  lowest  of  human  races,  we 
may  conclude  that,  in  the  course  of  evolution,  biting  pre- 
ceded kissing.  He  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  an  Ainu 
maiden,  the  most  lovely  Ainu  girl  he  had  ever  come  across. 
They  strolled  together  into  the  woods,  and  he  sketched  her 
picture.  She  clutched  his  hand  tightly,  and  pressed  it  to 
her  chest : 

"  I  would  not  have  mentioned  this  small  episode  if  her 
ways  of  flirting  had  not  been  so  extraordinary  and  funny. 
Loving  and  biting  went  together  with  her.  ...  As  we 
sat  on  a  stone  in  the  semi-darkness  she  began  by  gently  biting 

1  Which  even  in  tropical  countries   seldom  comes   before  the  eleventh  or 
twelfth  year.     See  the  statistics  in  Ploss-Bartels,  I.,  269-70. 

2  Alone  among  the  Hairy  Ainu,  140-41. 


APPETITE  AND   LONGING  295 

my  fingers  without  hurting  me,  as  affectionate  dogs  often  do 
their  masters  ;  she  then  bit  my  arm,  then  my  shoulder,  and 
when  she  had  worked  herself  up  into  a  passion  she  put  her 
arms  round  my  neck  and  bit  my  cheeks.  It  was  undoubt- 
edly a  curious  way  of  making  love,  and  when  I  had  been  bit- 
ten all  over,  and  was  pretty  tired  of  the  new  sensation,  we 
retired  to  our  respective  homes." 

Sensuality  has  had  its  own  evolution  quite  apart  and  dis- 
tinct from  that  of  love.  The  ancient  Greeks  and  Romans, 
and  the  Orientals,  especially  the  Hindoos,  were  familiar, 
thousands  of  years  ago,  with  refinements  and  variations  of 
lust  beyond  which  the  human  imagination  cannot  go.  Ac- 
cording to  Burton,  "  Kornemannus  in  his  book  de  linea 
amoris,  makes  five  degrees  of  lust,  out  of  Lncian  belike, 
which  he  handles  in  five  chapters,  Visus,  Colloquium,  Con- 
victus,  Oscula,  Tactus  —  sight,  conference,  association, 
kisses,  touch."  All  these  degrees  are  abundantly  illustrated 
in  Burton,  often  in  a  way  that  would  not  bear  quotation  in  a 
modern  book  intended  for  general  reading. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe,  furthermore,  that  among  the 
higher  barbarians  and  civilized  races,  lust  has  become  to  a 
certain  extent  mentalized  through  hereditary  memory  and 
association.  Aristotle  made  a  marvellous  anticipation  of 
modern  scientific  thought  when  he  suggested  that  what  made 
birds  sing  in  spring  was  the  memory  of  former  seasons  of 
love.  In  men  as  in  animals,  the  pleasant  experiences  of  love 
and  marriage  become  gradually  ingrained  in  the  brain,  and 
when  a  youth  reaches  the  age  for  love-making  the  memory  of 
ancestral  amorous  experiences  courses  through  his  nerves 
vaguely  but  strongly.  He  longs  for  something,  he  knows 
not  what,  and  this  mental  longing  is  one  of  the  earliest  and 
strongest  symptoms  of  love.  But  it  characterizes  all  sorts  of 
•  love  ;  it  may  accompany  pure  fancies  of  the  sentimental 
lover,  but  it  may  also  be  a  result  of  the  lascivious  imaginings 
and  anticipations  of  sensualism.  It  does  not,  therefore,  in 
itself  prove  the  presence  of  romantic  love  ;  a  point  on 
which  I  must  place  great  emphasis,  because  certain  primitive 
poems  expressing  a  longing  for  an  absent  girl  or  man  have 


296          SENSUALITY   AND    SENTIMENTALITY 

been  quoted  as  positive  evidence  of  romantic  love,  when  as 
a  matter  of  fact  there  is  nothing  to  prove  that  they  may  not 
have  been  inspired  by  mere  sensual  desires.  I  shall  cite  and 
comment  on  these  poems  in  later  chapters. 

Loss  of  sleep,  loss  of  appetite,  leanness,  hollow  eyes,  groans, 
griefs,  sadness,  sighing,  sobbing,  alternating  blushes  and 
pallor,  feverish  or  unequal  pulse,  suicidal  impulses,  are  other 
symptoms  occurring  among  such  advanced  nations  as  the 
Greeks  and  Hindoos  and  often  accepted  as  evidence  of  true 
love  ;  but  since,  like  longing,  they  also  accompany  lust  and 
other  strong  passions  or  violent  emotions,  they  cannot  be  ac- 
cepted as  reliable  symptoms  of  romantic  love.  The  only 
certain  criteria  of  love  are  to  be  found  in  the  manifestation 
of  the  altruistic  factors — sympathy,  gallantry,  and  self-sacri- 
ficing affection.  Romantic  love  is,  as  I  have  remarked  be- 
fore, riois-inerely  an  emotional  phenomenon,  but  an  active 
impulse.  The  true  lover  does  not,  like  the  sensualist  and  the 
sentimentalist,  ululate  his  time  away  in  dismal  wailing  about 
his  bodily  aches  and  tremors,  woes  and  pallors,  but  lets  his 
feelings  expend  themselves  in  multitudinous  acts  revealing 
his  eagerness  to  immolate  his  personal  pleasures  oh  the  altar 
of  his  idol. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  sensual  love  is  necessarily 
coarse  and  obscene.  An  antique  love-scene  may  in  itself  be 
proper  and  exquisitely  poetic  without  rising  to  the  sphere 
of  romantic  love  ;  as  when  Theocritus  declares  :  "  I  ask  not 
for  the  land  of  Pelops  nor  for  talents  of  gold.  But  under 
this  rock  will  I  sing,  holding  you  in  my  arms,  looking  at  the 
flocks  feeding  together  toward  the  Sicilian  Sea."  A  pretty 
picture  ;  but  what  evidence  is  there  in  it  of  affection  ?  It  is 
pleasant  for  a  man  to  hold  a  girl  in  his  arms  while  gazing  at 
the  Sicilian  Sea,  even  though  he  does  not  love  her  any  more 
than  a  thousand  other  girls. 

Even  in  Oriental  literature,  usually  so  gross  and  licentious, 
one  may  come  across  a  charmingly  poetic  yet  entirely  sensual 
picture  like  the  following  from  the  Persian  Gulistan  (339). 
On  a  very  hot  day,  when  he  was  a  young  man,  Saadi  found 
the  hot  wind  drying  up  the  moisture  of  his  mouth  and  melt- 


APPETITE   AND   LONGING  297 

ing  the  marrow  of  his  bones.  Looking  for  a  refuge  and  re- 
freshment, he  beheld  a  moon-faced  damsel  of  supreme  loveli- 
ness in  the  shaded  portico  of  a  mansion  : 

"  She  held  in  her  hand  a  goblet  of  snow-cold  water,  into 
which  she  dropt  some  sugar,  and  tempered  it  with  spirit  of 
wine  ;  but  I  know  not  whether  she  scented  it  with  attar,  or 
sprinkled  it  with  a  few  blossoms  from  her  own  rosy  check. 
In  short,  I  received  the  beverage  from  her  idol-fair  hand  : 
and  having  drunk  it  off,  found  myself  restored  to  new  life." 

Ward  writes  (115)  that  the  following  account  of  Sharuda, 
the  daughter  of  Brumha,  translated  from  the  Shiva  Parana, 
may  serve  as  a  just  description  of  a  perfect  Hindoo  beauty. 
This  girl  was  of  a  yellow  color  ;  had  a  nose  like  the  flower  of  a 
secamum  ;  her  legs  were  taper,  like  the  plantain-tree  ;  her 
eyes  large,  like  the  principal  leaf  of  the  lotos ;  her  eyebrows 
extended  to  her  ears  ;  her  lips  were  red,  like  the  young 
leaves  of  the  mango-tree  ;  her  face  was  like  the  full  moon  ; 
her  voice  like  the  sound  of  the  cuckoo ;  her  throat  was 
like  that  of  a  pigeon  ;  her  loins  narrow,  like  those  of  a  lion  ; 
her  hair  hung  in  curls  down  to  her  feet;  her  teeth  were 
like  the  seeds  of  the  pomegranate ;  and  her  gait  like  that 
of  a  drunken  elephant  or  a  goose. 

There  is  nothing  coarse  in  this  description,  yet  every  detail 
is  purely  sensual,  and  so  it  is  with  the  thousands  of  amorous 
rhapsodies  of  Hindoo,  Persian,  Turkish,  Arabic,  and  other 
Eastern  poets.  Concerning  the  Persians,  Dr.  Polak  remarks 
(I.,  206)  that  the  word  Isclik  (love)  is  always  associated  with 
the  idea  of  carnality  (  Was' I).  Of  the  Arabs,  Burckardt  says 
that  "the  passion  of  love  is  indeed  much  talked  of  by  the  in- 
habitants of  the  towns  ;  but  I  doubt  whether  anything  is 
meant  by  them  more  than  the  grossest  animal  desire."  In 
his  letters  from  the  East  the  keen-eyed  Count  von  Moltke 
notes  that  the  Turk  "passes  over  all  the  preliminary  rig- 
marole of  falling  in  love,  paying  court,  languishing,  revelling 
in  ecstatic  joy,  as  so  much  fa ux  frais,  and  goes  straight  to 
the  point," 


298          SENSUALITY   AND   SENTIMENTALITY 


WILES   OF   AN   ORIENTAL   GIRL 

But  is  the  German  field-marshal  quite  just  to  the  Turk  ? 
I  have  before  me  a  passage  which  seems  to  indicate  that  these 
Orientals  do  know  a  thing  or  two  about  the  "rigmarole  of 
love-rnaking."  It  is  cited  by  Kremer 1  from  the  Kitab  almo- 
wascha,  a  book  treating  of  social  matters  in  Baghdad.  Its 
author  devotes  a  special  chapter  to  the  dangers  lurking  in 
female  singers  and  musical  slaves,  in  the  course  of  which  he 


' '  If  one  of  these  girls  meets  a  rich  young  man,  she  sets 
about  ensnaring  him,  makes  eyes  at  him,  invites  him  with 
gestures,  sings  for  him  .  .  .  drinks  the  wine  he  left  in 
his  cup,  throws  kisses  with  her  hands,  till  she  has  the  poor 
fellow  in  her  net  and  he  is  enamoured.  .  .  .  Then  she 
sends  messages  to  him  and  continues  her  crafty  arts,  lets  him 
understand  that  she  is  losing  sleep  for  love  of  him,  is  pining 
for  him  ;  maybe  she  sends  him  a  ring,  or  a  lock  of  her  hair, 
a  paring  of  her  nails,  a  splinter  from  her  lute,  or  part  of  her 
toothbrush,  or  a  piece  of  fragrant  gum  (chewed  by  her)  as  a 
substitute  for  a  kiss,  or  a  note  written  and  folded  with  her 
own  hands  and  tied  with  a  string  from  her  lute,  with  a  tear- 
stain  on  it ;  and  finally  sealed  with  Ghalija,  her  ring,  on 
which  some  appropriate  words  are  carved."  Having  captured 
her  victim,  she  makes  him  give  her  valuable  presents  till  his 
purse  is  empty,  whereupon  she  discards  him. 

Was  Count  Moltke,  then,  wrong  ?  Have  we  here,  after  all, 
the  sentimental  symptoms  of  romantic  love  ?  Let  us  apply 
the  tests  provided  by  our  analysis  of  love — tests  as  reliable  as 
those  which  chemists  use  to  analyze  fluids  or  gases.  Did  the 
Baghdad  music-girl  prefer  that  man  to  all  other  individuals  ? 
Did  she  want  to  monopolize  him  jealously  ?  Oh,  no  !  any 
man,  however  old  and  ugly,  would  have  suited  her,  provided 
he  had  plenty  of  money.  Was  she  coy  toward  him  ?  Per- 
haps ;  but  not  from  a  feeling  of  modesty  and  timidity  in- 
spired by  love,  but  to  make  him  more  ardent  and  ready  to 
pay.  Was  she  proud  of  his  love  ?  She  thought  him  a  fool. 
Were  her  feelings  toward  him  chaste  and  pure  ?  As  chaste 

1  Culturgeschichte  des  Orients,  IL,  109. 


WILES   OF   AN   ORIENTAL   GIRL  299 

and  pure  as  his.  Did  she  sympathize  with  his  pleasures  and 
pains  ?  She  dismissed  him  as  soon  as  his  purse  was  empty, 
and  looked  about  for  another  victim.  Were  his  presents  the 
result  of  gallant  impulses  to  please  her,  or  merely  advance 
payment  for  favors  expected  ?  Would  he  have  sacrificed  his 
life  to  save  her  any  more  than  she  would  hers  to  save  him  ? 
Did  he  respect  her  as  an  immaculate  superior  being,  adore 
her  as  an  angel  from  above — or  look  on  her  as  an  inferior,  a 
slave  in  rank,  a  slave  to  passion  ? 

The  obvious  moral  of  this  immoral  episode  is  that  it  is  not 
permissible  to  infer  the  existence  of  anything  higher  than 
sensual  love  from  the  mere  fact  that  certain  romantic  tricks 
are  associated  with  the  amorous  dalliance  of  Orientals,  or 
Greeks  and  Romans.  Drinking  from  the  same  cup,  throw- 
ing kisses,  sending  locks  of  hair  or  tear-stained  letters,  ad- 
justing a  foot-stool,  or  fanning  a  heated  brow,  are  no  doubt 
romantic  incidents,  but  they  are  no  proof  of  romantic  feeling 
for  the  reason  that  they  are  frequently  associated  with  the 
most  heartless  and  mercenary  sensuality.  The  coquetry  of 
the  Baghdad  girl  is  romantic,  but  there  is  no  sentiment  in  it. 
Yet — and  here  we  reach  the  most  important  aspect  of  that 
episode — there  is  an  affectation  of  sentiment  in  that  sending 
of  locks,  notes,  and  splinters  from  her  lute  ;  and  this  affecta- 
tion of  sentiment  is  designated  by  the  word  sentimentality. 
In  the  history  of  love  sentimentality  precedes  sentiment ;  and 
for  a  proper  understanding  of  the  history  and  psychology  of 
love  it  is  as  important  to  distinguish  sentimentality  from 
sentiment  as  it  is  to  differentiate  love  from  lust. 

When  Lowell  wrote,  "  Let  us  be  thankful  that  in  every 
man's  life  there  is  a  holiday  of  romance,  an  illumination  of 
the  senses  by  the^soul,  that  makes  him  a  poet  while  it  lasts," 
he  made  a  sad  error  in  assuming  that  there  is  such  a  holiday 
of  romance  in  every  man's  life  ;  millions  never  enjoy  it ;  but 
the  words  I  have  italicized — "an  illumination  of  the  senses 
by  the  soul " — are  one  of  those  flashes  of  inspiration  which 
sometimes  enable  a  poet  to  give  a  better  description  of  a 
psychic  process  than  professional  philosophers  have  put  forth. 

From  one  point  of  view  the  love  sentiment  may  be  called 


300  SENTIMENTALITY   AND    SENTIMENT 

an  illumination  of  the  senses  by  the  soul.  Elsewhere  Lowell 
has  given  another  admirable  definition  :  "  Sentiment  is  in- 
tellectualized  emotion,  emotion  precipitated,  as  it  were,  in 
pretty  crystals  of  thought."  Excellent,  too,  is  J.  F.  Clarke's 
definition  :  "  Sentiment  is  nothing  but  thought  blended  with 
feeling ;  thought  made  affectionate,  sympathetic,  moral." 
The  Century  Dictionary  throws  further  light  on  this  word  : 

"  Sentiment  has  a  peculiar  place  between  thought  and 
feeling,  in  which  it  also  approaches  the  meaning  of  principle. 
It  is  more  than  that  feeling  which  is  sensation  or  emotion, 
by  containing  more  of  thought  and  by  being  more  lofty, 
while  it  contains  too  much  feeling  to  be  merely"  thought, 'and 
it  has  large  influence  over  the  will ;  for  example,  the  senti- 
ment of  patriotism  ;  the  sentiment  of  honor  ;  the  world  is 
ruled  by  sentiment.  The  thought  in  a  sentiment  is  often 
that  of  duty,  and  is  penetrated  and  exalted  by  feeling." 

Herbert  Spencer  sums  up  thejnatter  concisely  (Psych., 
II.,  578)  when  he  speaks  of  "  that  remoteness  from  sensations 
and  appetites  and  from  ideas  of  such  sensations  and  appetites 
which  is  the  common  trait  of  the  feelings  we  call  senti- 
ments." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  in  our  Baghdad 
girl's  love-affairs  there  is  no  "  remoteness  from  sensations 
and  appetites,"  no  "  illumination  of  the  senses  by  the  soul," 
no  "  intellectnalized  emotion,"  no  "  thought  made  affection- 
ate, sympathetic,  moral."  But  there  is  in  it,  as  I  have  said, 
a  touch  of  sentimentality.  If  sentiment  is  properly  defined 
as  "  higher  feeling,"  sentimentality  is  "  affectation  of  fine  or 
tender  feeling  or  exquisite  sensibility."  Heartless  coquetry, 
prudery,  mock  modesty,  are  bosom  friends  of  sentimentality. 
AVhile  sentiment  is  the  noblest  thing  in  the  world,  sentimen- 
tality is  its  counterfeit,  its  caricature  ;  there  is  something 
theatrical,  operatic,  painted-and-powdered  about  it ;  it  dif- 
fers from  sentiment  as  astrology  differs  from  astronomy,  al- 
chemy from  chemistry,  the  sham  from  the  real,  hypocrisy 
from  sincerity,  artificial  posing  from  natural  grace,  genuine 
affection  from  selfish  attachment. 


RARITY   OF   TRUE   LOVE  301 


RARITY   OF   TRUE   LOVE 

Sentimentality,  as  I  have  said,  precedes  sentiment  in  the 
history  ^of  love,  and  it  has  been  a  special  characteristic  of 
certain  periods,  like  that  of  the  Alexandrian  Greeks  and  their 
Roman  imitators,  to  whom  we  shall  recur  in  a  later  chapter, 
and  the  mediaeval  Troubadours  and  Minnesingers.  To  the 
present  day  sentimentality  in  love  is  so  much  more  abundant 
than  sentiment  that  the  adjective  sentimental  is  commonly 
used  in  an  uncomplimentary  sense,  as  in  the  following  pas- 
sage from  one  of  Krafft-Ebiug's  books  (Psch.  Sex.,  9)  :  "  Sen- 
timental love  runs  the  risk  of  degenerating  into  caricature, 
especially  in  cases  where  the  sensual  ingredient  is  weak. 
.  .  .  Such  love  has  a  flat,  saccharine  tang.  It  is  apt  to 
become  positively  ludicrous,  whereas  in  other  cases  the  man- 
ifestations of  this  strongest  of  all  feelings  inspire  in  us  sym- 
pathy, respect,  awe,  according  to  circumstances." 

Steele  speaks  in  The  Lover  (23,  No.  5)  of  the  extraordinary 
skill  of  a  poet  in  making  a  loose  people  "  attend  to  a  Passion 
which  they  never,  or  that  very  faintly,  felt  in  their  own  Bos- 
oms." La  Rochefoucauld  wrote  :  "  It  is  with  true  love  as 
with  ghosts  ;  everybody  speaks  of  it,  but  few  have  seen  it." 
A  writer  in  Science  expressed  his  belief  that  romantic  love, 
as  described  in  my  first  book,  could  really  be  experienced 
only  by  men  of  genius.  I  think  that  this  makes  the  circle 
too  small ;  yet  in  these  twelve  years  of  additional  observation 
I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  even  at  this  stage  of  civ- 
ilization only  a  small  proportion  of  men  and  women  are  able 
to  experience  full-fledged  romantic  love,  which  seems  to  re- 
quire a  special  emotional  or  esthetic  gift,  like  the  talent  for 
music.  A  few  years  ago  I  came  across  the  following  in  the 
London  Tidbit*  which  echoes  the  sentiments  of  multitudes: 
"  Latour,  who  sent  a  pathetic  complaint  the  other  day  that 
though  he  wished  to  do  so  he  was  unable  to  fall  in  love,  has 
called  forth  a  sympathetic  response  from  a  number  of  readers 
of  both  sexes.  These  ladies  and  gentlemen  write  to  say  that 
they  also,  like  Latour,  cannot  understand  how  it  is  that  they 
are  not  able  to  feel  any  experience  of  tender  passion  which 


302  SENTIMENTALITY  AND   SENTIMENT 

they  read  about  so  much  in  novels,  and  hear  about  in  actual 
life."  At  the  same  time  there  are  not  a  few  men  of  genius, 
too,  who  never  felt  true  love  in  their  own  hearts.  Herder  be- 
lieved that  Goethe  was  not  capable  of  genuine  love,  and 
Grimm,  too,  thought  that  Goethe  had  never  experienced  a 
self -absorbing  passion.  Tolstoi  must  have  been  ever  a  stran- 
ger to  genuine  love,  for  to  him  it  seems  a  degrading  thing 
even  in  marriage.  A  suggestive  and  frank  confession  may 
be  found  in  the  literary  memoirs  of  Goncourt.1  At  a  small 
gathering  of  men  of  letters  Goncourt  remarked  that  hitherto 
love  had  not  been  studied  scientifically  in  novels.  Zola 
thereupon  declared  that  love  was  not  a  specific  emotion  ;  that 
it  does  not  affect  persons  so  absolutely  as  the  writers  say  ; 
that  the  phenomena  characterizing  it  are  also  found  in  friend- 
ship, in  patriotism,  and  that  the  intensity  of  this  emotion  is  due 
entirely  to  the  anticipation  of  carnal  enjoyment.  Turgenieff 
objected  to  these  views ;  in  his  opinion  love  is  a  sentiment 
which  has  a  unique  color  of  its  own — a  quality  differentiating 
it  from  all  other  sentiments — eliminating  the  -lover's  own  per- 
sonality, as  it  were.  The  Russian  novelist  obviously  had  a 
conception  of  the  purity  of  love,  for  Goncourt  reports  him 
as  "  speaking  of  his  first  love  for  a  woman  as  a  thing  entirely 
spiritual,  having  nothing  in  common  with  materiality. " 
And  now  follows  Goncourt's  confession  : 

"  In  all  this,  the  thing  to  regret  is  that  neither  Flaubert 
.  .  .  .  nor  Zola,  nor  myself,  have  ever  been  very  seriously 
in  love  and  that  we  are  therefore  unable  to  describe  love. 
Turgenieff  alone  could  have  done  that,  but  he  lacks  precisely 
the  critical  sense  which  we  could  have  exercised  in  this  mat- 
ter had  we  been  in  love  after  his  fashion." 

The  vast  majority  of  the  human  race  has  not  yet  got  be- 
yond the  sensual  stage  of  amorous  evolution,  or  realized  the  dif- 
ference between  sentimentality  and  sentiment.  There  is  much 
food  for  thought  in  this  sentence  from  Henry  James's  charm- 
ing essay  on  France's  most  poetic  writer — Theophile  Gautier  : 
"  It  has  seemed  to  me  rather  a  painful  exhibition  of  the 
prurience  of  the  human  mind  that  in  most  of  the  notices  of 

»  Journal  des  Goncourt,  Tome  V.,  328-29. 


RARITY    OF   TRUE   LOVE  303 

the  author's  death  (those  at  least  published  in  England  and 
America),  this  work  alone  [Mile,  de  Maupin]  should  have 
been  selected  as  the  critic's  text."  Readers  are  interested 
only  in  emotions  with  which  they  are  familiar  by  experi- 
ence. Howells's  refined  love-scenes  have  often  been  sneered 
at  by  men  who  like  raw  whiskey  but  cannot  appreciate  the 
delicate  bouquet  of  Chambertin.  As  Professor  Ribot  re- 
marks :  in  the  higher  regions  of  science,  art,  religion,  and 
morals  there  are  emotions  so  subtle  and  elevated  that  "not 
more  than  one  individual  in  a  hundred  thousand  or  even  in 
a  million  can  experience  them.  The  others  are  strangers  to 
them,  or  do  not  know  of  their  existence  except  vaguely, 
from  what  they  hear  about  them.  It  is  a  promised  land, 
which  only  the  select  can  enter." 

I  believe  that  romantic  love  is  a  sentiment  which  more 
than  one  person  in  a  million  can  experience,  and  more  than 
one  in  a  hundred  thousand.  How  many  more,  I  shall  not 
venture  to  guess.  All  the  others  know  love  only  as  a  sensual 
craving.  To  them  "I  love  you"  means  "I  long  for  you, 
covet  you.  am  eager  to  enjoy  you";  and  this  feeling  is  not 
love  of  another  but  self-love,  more  or  less  disguised — the 
kind  of  "love"  which  makes  a  young  man  shoot  a  girl  who 
refuses  him.  The  mediaeval  writer  Leon  Hebrseus  evidently 
knew  of  no  other  when  he  defined  love  as  "  a  desire  to  enjoy 
that  which  is  good "  ;  nor  Spinoza  when  he  defined  it  as 
Icetetia  concomitante  idea  externce  causes — a  pleasure  ac- 
companied by  the  thought  of  its  external  cause. 


MISTAKES   KEGAKDING    CONJUGAL    LOVE 

HAVING  distinguished  romantic  or  sentimental  love  from 
sentimentality  on  one  side  and  sensuality  on  the  other,  it  re- 
mains to  show  how  it  differs  from  conjugal  affection. 


HOW    ROMANTIC    LOVE    IS    METAMORPHOSED 

On  hearing  the  words  "love  letters/'  does  anybody  ever 
think  of  a  man's  letters  to  his  wife  ?  No  more  than  of  his 
letters  to  his  mother.  He  may  love  both  his  wife  and  his 
mother  dearly,  but  when  he  writes  love  letters  he  writes  them 
to  his  sweetheart.  Thus,  public  opinion  and  every-day 
literary  usage  clearly  recognize  the  difference  between  ro- 
mantic love  and  conjugal  affection.  Yet  when  I  maintained 
in  my  first  book  that  romantic  love  differs  as  widely  from 
conjugal  affection  as  maternal  love  differs  from  friendship  ; 
that  romantic  love  is  almost  as  modern  as  the  telegraph, 
the  railway,  and  the  electric  light;  and  that  perhaps  the 
main  reasons  why  no  one  had  anticipated  me  in  an  attempt 
to  write  a  book  to  prove  this,  were  that  no  distinction 
had  heretofore  been  made  between  conjugal  and  romantic 
love,  and  that  the  apparent  occurrence  of  noble  examples  of 
conjugal  attachment  among  the  ancient  Greeks  had  obscured 
the  issue — there  was  a  chorus  of  dissenting  voices.  "  The 
distinction  drawn  by  him  between  romantic  and  conjugal 
love,"  wrote  one  critic,  "seems  more  fanciful  than  real/' 
"He  will  not  succeed,"  wrote  another,  "in  convincing  any- 
body that  romantic  and  conjugal  love  differ  in  kind  instead 
of  only  in  degree  or  place  " ;  while  a  third  even  objected  to 
my  theory  as  "  essentially  immoral  !  " 

Mr.  W.  D.  Howells,  on  the  other  hand,  accepted  my  dis- 
tinction, and  in  a  letter  to  me  declared  that  he  found  con- 

304 


HOW  ROMANTIC  LOVE   IS  METAMORPHOSED    305 

jugal  affection  an  even  more  interesting  field  of  study  than 
romantic  love.  Why,  indeed,  should  anyone  be  alarmed  at 
the  distinction  I  made  ?  Is  not  a  man's  feeling  toward  his 
sweetheart  different  from  his  feeling  toward  his  mother  or 
sister?  Why  then  should  it  be  absurd  or  "immoral"  to 
maintain  that  it  differs  from  his  feeling  toward  hisjwife  ? 
What  I  maintain  is  that  romantic  love  disappears  gradu- 
ally, to  be  replaced,  as  a  rule,  by  conjugal  affection,  which 
is  sometimes  a  less  intense,  at  other  times  a  more  intense, 
feeling  than  the  emotions  aroused  during  courtship.  The 
process  may  be  compared  to  a  modulation  in  music,  in  which 
some  of  the  tones  in  a  chord  are  retained  while  others  are 
displaced  by  new  ones.  Such  modulations  are  delightful,  and 
the  new  harmony  may  be  as  beautiful  as  the  old.  A  visitor 
to  Wordsworth's  home  wrote  :  "I  saw  the  old  man  walking 
in  the  garden  with  his  wife.  They  were  both  quite  old,  arid 
he  was  almost  blind  ;  but  they  seemed  like  sweethearts  court- 
ing, they  were  so  tender  to  each  other  and  attentive." 

A  husband  may  be,  and  should  be,  quite  as  tender,  as  at- 
tentive, as  gallant  and  self-sacrificing,  as  sympathetic,  proud, 
and  devoted  as  a  lover ;  yet  all  his  emotions  will  appear  in 
a  new  orchestration,  as  it  were.  In  the  gallant  attentions  of 
a  loving  husband,  the  anxious  eagerness  to  please  is  displaced 
by  a  pleasant  sense  of  duty  and  gentlemanly  courtesy.  He 
still  prefers  his  wife  to  all  other  women  and  wants  a  mo- 
nopoly of  her  love ;  but  this  feeling  has  a  proprietary  tinge 
that  was  absent  before.  Jealousy,  too,  assumes  a  new  aspect ; 
it  may,  temporarily,  bring  back  the  uncertainty  of  court- 
ship, but  the  emotion  is  colored  by  entirely  different  ideas  : 
jealousy  in  a  lover  is  a  green-eyed  monster  gnawing  merely  at 
his  hopes,  and  not,  as  in  a  husband,  threatening  to  destroy 
his  property  and  his  family  honor — which  makes  a  great 
difference  in  the  quality  of  the  feeling  and  its  manifesta- 
tion. The  wife,  on  her  part,  has  no  more  use  for  coyness, 
but  can  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  bestowing  gallant  attentions 
which  before  marriage  would  have  seemed  indelicate  or  for- 
ward, while  after  marriage  they  are  a  uleasant  duty,  rising  in 
some  cases  to  heroic  self-sacrifice. 


306     MISTAKES   REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

If  even  within  the  sphere  of  romantic  love  no  two  cases 
are  exactly  alike,  how  could  love  before  marriage  be  the 
same  as  after  marriage  when  so  many  new  experiences,  ideas, 
and  associations  come  into  play  ?  Above  all,  the  feelings 
relating  to  the  children  bring  an  entirely  new  group  of  tones 
into  the  complex  harmony  of  affection.  The  intimacies  of 
married  life,  the  revelation  of  characteristics  undiscovered 
before  marriage,  the  deeper  sympathy,  the  knowledge  that 
theirs  is  "  one  glory  an'  one  shame  " — these  and  a  hundred 
other  domestic  experiences  make  romantic  love  undergo  a 
change  into  something  that  may  be  equally  rich  and  strange 
but  is  certainly  quite  different.  A  wife's  charms  are  differ- 
ent from  a  girFs  and  inspire  a  different  kind  of  love.  The 
husband  loves 

Those  virtues  which,  before  untried, 
The  wife  has  added  to  the  bride, 

as  Samuel  Bishop  rhymes  it.  In  their  predilection  for 
maidens,  poets,  like  novelists,  have  until  recently  ignored  the 
wife  too  much.  But  Cowper  sang  : 

What  is  there  in  the  vale  of  life 
Half  so  delightful  as  a  wife, 
When  friendship,  love  and  peace  combine 
To  stamp  the  marriage  bond  divine  ? 
The  stream  of  pure  and  genuine  love 
Derives  its  current  from  above  ; 
And  earth  a  second  Eden  shows, 
Where'er  the  healing  water  flows. 

Some  of  the  specifically  romantic  ingredients  of  love, 
on  the  other  hand— adoration,  hyperbole,  the  mixed  moods 
of  hope  and  despair — do  not  normally  enter  into  conjugal 
affection.  No  one  would  fail  to  see  the  absurdity  of  a  hus- 
band's exclaiming 

O  that  I  were  a  glove  upon  that  hand 
That  I  might  touch  that  cheek. 

He  may  touch  that  cheek,  and  kiss  it  too — and  that  makes  a 
tremendous  difference  in  the  tone  and  tension  of  his  feelings. 


WHY   SAVAGES   VALUE   WIVES  307 

Unlike  the  lover,  the  husband  does  not  think,  feel,  and  speak 
in  perpetual  hyperboles.  He  does  not  use  expressions  like 
"beautiful  tyrant,  fiend  angelical,"  or  speak  of 

The  cruel  madness  of  love 
The  honey  of  poisonous  flowers. 

There  is  no  madness  or  cruelty  in  conjugal  love  :  in  its  nor- 
mal state  it  is  all  peace,  contentment,  happiness,  while  ro- 
mantic love,  in  its  normal  state,  is  chiefly  unrest,  doubt, 
fear,  anxiety,  torture  and  anguish  of  heart — with  alternating 
hours  of  frantic  elation — until  the  Yes  has  been  spoken. 

The  emotions  of  a  husband  are  those  of  a  mariner  who  has 
entered  into  the  calm  harbor  of  matrimony  with  his  treasure 
safe  and  sound,  while  the  romantic  lover  is  as  one  who  is  still 
on  the  high  seas  of  uncertainty,  storm-tossed  one  moment, 
lifted  sky-high  on  a  wave  of  hope,  the  next  in  a  dark  abyss 
of  despair.  It  is  indeed  lucky  that  conjugal  affection 
does  differ  so  widely  from  romantic  love ;  such  nervous 
tension,  doubt,  worry,  and  constant  friction  between  hope 
and  despair  would,  if  continued  after  marriage,  make  life  a 
burden  to  the  most  loving  couples. 

WHY   SAVAGES  VALUE   WIVES 

The  notion  that  genuine  romantic  love  does  not  undergo 
a  metamorphosis  in  marriage  is  the  first  of  five  mistakes 
I  have  undertaken  to  correct  in  this  chapter.  The  second  is 
summed  up  in  Westermarck's  assertion  (359-60)  that  it  is 
"  impossible  to  believe  that  there  ever  was  a  time  when  con- 
jugal affection  was  entirely  wanting  in  the  human  race  .  .  . 
it  seems,  in  its  most  primitive  form,  to  have  been  as  old  as 
marriage  itself.  It  must  be  a  certain  degree  of  affection  that 
induces  the  male  to  defend  the  female  during  her  period  of 
pregnancy."  Now  I  concede  that  natural  selection  must 
have  developed  at  an  early  period  in  the  history  of  man,  as  in 
the  lower  animals,  some  kind  of  an  attachment  between  male 
and  females.  A  wife  could  not  seek  her  daily  food  in  the 
forest  and  at  the  same  time  defend  herself  and  her  helpless 


308     MISTAKES   REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

babe  against  wild  beasts  and  human  enemies.  Hence  natural 
selection  favored  those  groups  in  which  the  males  attached 
themselves  to  a  particular  female  for  a  longer  time  than  the 
breeding-season,  defending  her  from  enemies  and  giving  her 
a  share  of  their  game.  But  from  this  admitted  fact  to  the 
inference  that  it  is  " affection"  that  makes  the  husband  de- 
fend his  wife,  there  is  a  tremendous  logical  skip  not  warranted 
by  the  situation.  Instead  of  making  such  an  assumption  off- 
hand, the  scientific  method  requires  us  to  ask  if  there  is  not 
some  other  way  of  accounting  for  the  facts  more  in  accordance 
with  the  selfish  disposition  and  habits  of  savages.  The  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  is  easily  found.  A  savage's  wife  is  his 
property,  which  he  has  acquired  by  barter,  service,  fighting,  or 
purchase,  and  which  he  would  be  a  fool  not  to  protect  against 
injury  or  rivals.  She  is  to  him  a  source  of  utility,  comfort, 
and  pleasure,  which  is  reason  enough  why  he  should  not 
allow  a  lion  to  devour  her  or  a  rival  to  carry  her  off.  She  is 
his  cook,  his  slave,  his  mule ;  she  fetches  wood  and  water, 
prepares  the  food,  puts  up  the  camp,  and  when  it  is  time  to 
move  carries  the  tent  and  kitchen  utensils,  as  well  as  her  child 
to  the  next  place.  If  his  motive  in  protecting  her  against 
men  and  beasts  were  affection,  he  would  not  thus  compel  her 
to  do  all  the  work  while  he  walks  unburdened  to  the  next 
camping-place. 

Apart  from  these  home  comforts  there  are  selfish  reasons 
enough  why  savages  should  take  the  trouble  to  protect  their 
wives  and  rear  children.  In  Australia  it  is  a  universal  cus- 
tom to  exchange  a  daughter  for  a  new  wife,  discarding  or 
neglecting  the  old  one  ;  and  the  habit  of  treating  children  as 
merchandise  prevails  in  various  other  parts  of  the  world. 
The  gross  utilitarianism  of  South  African  marriages  is  illus- 
trated in  Dr.  Fritsch's  remarks  on  the  Ama-Zulus.  "  As 
these  women  too  are  slaves,  there  is  not  much  to  say  about 
love,  marriage,  or  conjugal  life,"  he  says.  The  husband  pays 
for  his  wife,  but  expects  her  to  repay  him  for  his  outlay  by 
hard  work  and  by  bearing  children  ivliom  he  can  sell.  "  If 
she  fails  to  make  herself  thus  useful,  if  she  falls  ill,  becomes 
weak,  or  remains  childless,  he  often  sends  her  back  to  her 


WHY   SAVAGES   VALUE   WIVES  309 

father  and  demands  restitution  of  the  cattle  he  had  paid  for 
her  ;  "  and  his  demand  has  to  be  complied  with.  Lord  Ran- 
dolph Churchill  (249)  was  informed  by  a  native  of  Mashona- 
hind  that  he  had  his  eye  on  a  girl  whom  he  desired  to  marry, 
because  "  if  he  was  lucky,  his  wiffe  might  have  daughters 
whom  he  would  be  able  to  sell  in  exchange  for  goats." 
Samuel  Baker  writes  in  one  of  his  books  of  African  ex- 
ploration (Ism.,  341)  :  "Girls  are  always  purchased  if  re- 
quired as  wives.  It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  obtain  a 
wife  for  love  from  any  tribe  that  I  have  visited.  'Blessed  is 
he  that  hath  his  quiver  full  of  them'  (daughters).  A  large 
family  of  girls  is  a  source  of  wealth  to  the  father,  as  he 
sells  each  daughter  for  twelve  or  fifteen  cows  to  her  suitor." 
Of  the  Central  African,  Macdonald  says  (I.,  141):  "The 
more  wives  he  has  the  richer  he  is.  It  is  his  wives  that  main- 
tain him.  They  do  all  his  ploughing,  milling,  cooking,  etc. 
They  may  be  viewed  as  superior  servants,  who  combine  all 
the  capacities  of  male  servants  and  female  servants  in  Brit- 
ain— who  do  all  his  work  and  ask  no  wages."  We  need  not 
assume  a  problematic  affection  to  explain  why  such  a  man 
marries. 

But  the  savage's  principal  marriage  motive  is,  of  course, 
sensualism.  If  he  wants  to  own  a  particular  girl  he  must 
take  care  of  her.  If  he  tires  of  her  it  is  easy  enough  to  get 
rid  of  her  or  to  make  her  a  drudge  pure  and  simple,  while  her 
successor  enjoys  his  caresses.  Speaking  of  Pennsylvania  Ind- 
ians, Buchanan  remarks  naively  (II.,  95)  that  "the  wives 
are  the  true  servants  of  their  husbands  ;  otherwise  the  men 
are  very  affectionate  to  them."  On  another  page  (102)  he  in- 
advertently explains  what  he  means  by  this  paradox  :  "  the 
ancient  women  are  used  for  cooks,  barbers,  and  other  services, 
the  younger  for  dalliance."  In  other  words,  Buchanan 
makes  the  common  mistake  of  applying  the  altruistic  word 
affection  to  what  is  nothing  more  than  selfish  indulgence  of 
the  sensual  appetite.  So  does  Pajeken  when  he  tells  us  in 
the  Ausland  about  the  "touching  tenderness "  of  a  Crow 
chief  toward  a  fourteen-year-old  girl  whom  he  had  just  added 
to  the  number  of  his  wives.  "  While  he  was  in  the  wigwam 


310     MISTAKES    REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

he  did  not  leave  her  a  moment.  With  his  own  hands  he 
adorned  her  with  chains,  and  strings  of  teeth  and  pearls,  and 
he  found  a  special  pleasure  in  combing  her  black,  soft,  .silken 
hair.  He  gambolled  with  her  like  a  child  and  rocked  her  on 
his  knees,  telling  her  stories.  Of  his  other  wives  he  de- 
manded the  utmost  respect  in  their  treatment  of  his  little 
one."  This  reference  to  the  other  wives  ought  to  have  opened 
Pajeken's  eyes  as  to  the  silliness  of  speaking  of  the  "  touch- 
ing "  tenderness  of  the  Crow  chief  to  his  latest  favorite.  In 
a  few  years  she  was  doomed  to  be  discarded,  like  the  others, 
in  favor  of  a  new  victim  of  his  carnal  appetite.  Affection  is 
entirely  out  of  the  question  in  such  cases. 

The  Malayans  of  Sumatra  have,  as  Carl  Bock  tells  us  (314), 
a  local  custom  allowing  a  wife  to  marry  again  if  her  faithless 
spouse  has  deserted  her  for  three  months : 

"  The  early  age  at  which  marriage  is  contracted  is  an  ob- 
stacle to  any  real  affection  between  couples  ;  for  girls  to  be 
wives  at  fourteen  is  a  common  occurrence  ;  indeed,  that  age 
may  be  put  down  as  the  average  age  of  first  marriage.  The 
girls  are  then  frequently  good-looking,  but  hard  work  and 
the  cares  of  maternity  soon  stamp  their  faces  with  the  marks 
of  age,  and  spoil  their  figures,  and  then  the  Malay  husband 
forsakes  his  wife,  if,  indeed,  he  keeps  her  so  long." 

Marriage  with  these  people  is,  as  Bock  adds,  .a  mere  mat- 
ter of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence.  His  servant  had  married 
a  " grass- widow"  of  three  months'  desertion.  But  "before 
she  had  enjoyed  her  new  title  six  weeks,  a  coolness  sprang  up 
between  her  and  her  husband.  I  inquired  the  reason,  and  she 
naively  confessed  that  her  husband  had  no  more  rupees  to 
give  her,  and  so  she  did  not  care  for  him  any  longer." 

Concerning  Damara  women  Galton  writes  (197) : 

"  They  were  extremely  patient,  though  not  feminine,  ac- 
cording to  our  ideas  :  they  had  no  strong  affections  either  for 
spouse  or  children  ;  in  fact,  the  spouse  was  changed  almost 
weekly,  and  I  seldom  knew  without  inquiry  who  the  pro 
tetnpore  husband  of  each  lady  was  at  any  particular  time." 

Among  the  Singhalese,  if  a  wife  is  sick  and  can  no  longer 
minister  to  her  husband's  comforts  and  pleasure  he  repudiates 


MOURNING   TO   ORDER  311 

her.  Bailey  says !  that  this  heartless  desertion  of  a  sick  wife  is 
"the  worst  trait  in  the  Kandyan  character,  and  the  cool  and 
unconcerned  manner  in  which  they  themselves  allude  to  it 
shows  that  it  is  as  common  as  it  is  cruel." 

"How  can  a  man  be  contented  with  one  wife,"  exclaimed 
an  Arab  sheik  to  Sir  Samuel  Baker  (N.  T.  A.,  263).  "  It  is 
ridiculous,  absurd."  And  then  he  proceeded  to  explain  why, 
in  his  opinion,  monogamy  is  such  an  absurdity  : 

"  What  is  he  to  do  when  she  becomes  old  ?  When  she  is 
young,  if  very  lovely,  perhaps,  he  might  be  satisfied  with 
her,  but  even  the  young  must  some  day  grow  old,  and  the 
beautiful  must  fade.  The  man  does  not  fade  like  a  woman  ; 
therefore,  as  he  remains  the  same  for  many  years,  Nature  has 
arranged  that  the  man  shall  have  young  wives  to  replace  the 
old  ;  does  not  the  prophet  allow  it  ?  " 

He  then  pointed  out  what  further  advantage  there  was  in 
having  several  wives :  "  This  one  carries  water,  that  one 
grinds  corn  ;  this  makes  the  bread ;  the  last  does  not  do 
much,  as  she  is  the  youngest  and  my  favorite  ;  and  if  they 
neglect  their  work  they  get  a  taste  of  this  ! "  shaking  a  long 
and  tolerably  thick  stick. 

There  you  have  the  typical  male  polygamist  with  his  rea- 
sons frankly  stated — sensual  gratification  and  utilitarianism. 


MOURNING   TO   ORDER 

One  of  the  most  gossipy  and  least  critical  of  all  writers  on 
primitive  man,  Bonwick,  declares  (97),  in  describing  Tas- 
manian  funerals,  that  "  the  affectionate  nature  of  women  ap- 
peared on  such  melancholy  occasions.  .  .  .  The  women 
not  only  wept,  but  lacerated  their  bodies  with  sharp  shells 
and  stones,  even  burning  their  thighs  with  fire-sticks.  .  .  . 
The  hair  cut  off  in  grief  was  thrown  upon  the  mound." 
Descriptions  of  the  howling  and  tortures  to  which  savages 
subject^ themselves  as  part  of  their  funeral  rites  abound  in 
works  of  travel,  and  although  every  school-boy  knows  that  the 
deepest  waters  are  silent,  it  is  usually  assumed  that  these 
»  Tram.  Ethn.  Soc.  N.  6'.,  II.,  292. 


312     MISTAKES    REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

howling  antics  betray  the  deep  grief  and  affection  of  the 
mourners.  Now  I  do  not  deny  that  the  lower  races  do  feel 
grief  at  the  loss  of  a  relative  or  friend  ;  it  is  one  of  the  ear- 
liest emotions  to  develop  in  mankind.  What  I  object  to  in 
particular  is  the  notion  that  the  penances  to  which  widows 
submit  on  the  death  of  their  husbands  indicate  deep  and 
genuine  conjugal  affection.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  pen- 
ances are  not  voluntary  but  prescribed,  each  widow  in  a  tribe 
being  expected  to  indulge  in  the  same  bowlings  and  muti- 
lations, so  that  this  circumstance  alone  would  make  it  im- 
possible to  say  whether  her  lamentations  over  her  late  spouse 
came  under  the  head  of  affection,  fondness,  liking,  or  attach- 
ment, or  whether  they  are  associated  with  indifference  or 
hatred.  It  is  instructive  to  note  that,  in  descriptions  of 
mourning  widows,  the  words  "  must  "  or  "  obliged  to  "  near- 
ly always  occur.  Among  the  Mandans,  we  read  in  Catlin 
(I.,  95),  "  in  mourning,  like  the  Crows  and  most  other  tribes, 
the  women  are  obliged  to  crop  their  hair  all  off  ;  and  the  usu- 
al term  of  that  condolence  is  until  the  hair  has  grown  again 
to  its  former  length."  The  locks  of  the  men  (who  make 
them  do  this),  "are  of  much  greater  importance/'  and  only 
one  or  two  can  be  spared.  According  to  Schomburgk,  on 
the  death  of  her  husband,  an  Arawak  wife  must  cut  her  hair  ; 
and  until  this  has  again  grown  to  a  certain  length  she  cannot 
remarry.  (Spencer,  D.  S.,  20.)  Among  the  Patagonians, 
"  the  widow,  or  widows,  of  the  dead,  are  obliged  to  mourn 
and  fast  for  a  whole  year  after  the  death  of  their  hus- 
bands." They  must  abstain  from  certain  kinds  of  food,  and 
must  not  wash  their  faces  and  hands  for  a  whole  year ;  while 
"  during  the  year  of  mourning  they  are  forbidden  to  marry." 
(Falkner,  119.)  The  grief  is  all  prescribed  and  regulated 
according  to  tribal  fancy.  The  Brazilians  "  repeat  the  lamen- 
tation for  the  dead  twice  a  day."  (Spix  and  Martius,  II.,  250.) 
The  Comanches  "  mourn  for  the  dead  systematically  and 
periodically  with  great  noise  and  vehemence  ;  at  which  time 
the  female  relatives  of  the  deceased  scarify  their  arms  and 
legs  with  sharp  flints  until  the  blood  trickles  from  a  thousand 
pores.  The  duration  of  these  lamentations  depends  on  the 


MOURNING    TO   ORDER  313 

quality  and  estimation  of  the  deceased  ;  varying  from  three 
to  five  or  seven  days."  (Schoolcraft,  I.,  237.)  James  Adair 
says  in  his  History  of  the  American  Indians  (188),  "  They 
compel  the  widow  to  act  the  part  of  the  disconsolate  dove, 
for  the  irreparable  loss  of  her  mate." 

In  Dahomey,  during  mourning  "  the  weeping  relatives  must 
fast  and  refrain  from  bathing,"  etc.  (Burton,  II.,  164.)  In 
the  Transvaal,  writes  the  missionary  Posselt,  "  there  are  a  num- 
ber of  heathenish  customs  which  the  widows  are  obliged  to 
observe.  There  is,  first,  the  terrible  lamentation  for  the  dead. 
Secondly,  the  widows  must  allow  themselves  to  be  fumi- 
gated," etc.  Concerning  the  Asiatic  Turks  Vambery  writes 
that  the  women  are  not  allowed  to  attend  the  funeral,  but 
"are  obliged  meanwhile  to  remain  in  their  tent,  and,  while 
lamenting  incessantly,  scratch  their  cheeks  with  their  nails, 
i.e.,  mar  their  beauty."  The  widow  must  lament  or  sing  dirges 
for  a  whole  year,  etc.  Chippewa  widows  are  obliged  to  fast 
and  must  not  comb  their  hair  for  a  year  or  wear  any  orna- 
ment. A  Shush wap  widow  must  not  allow  her  shadow  to 
fall  on  any  one,  and  must  bed  her  head  on  thorns.  Bancroft 
notes  (I.,  731)  that  among  the  Mosquito  Indians  "  the  widow 
was  bound  to  supply  the  grave  of  her  husband  with  provi- 
sions for  a  year,  after  which  she  took  up  the  bones  and  car- 
ried them  with  her  for  another  year,  at  last  placing  them 
upon  the  roof  of  her  house,  and  then  only  was  she  alloived  to 
marry  again."  The  widows  of  the  Tolkotin  Indians  in  Ore- 
gon were  subjected  to  such  maltreatment  that  some  of  them 
committed  suicide  to  escape  their  sufferings.  For  nine  days 
they  were  obliged  to  sleep  beside  the  corpse  and  follow  certain 
rules  in  regard  to  dressing  and  eating.  If  a  widow  neglected 
any  of  these,  she  was  on  the  tenth  day  thrown  on  the  funeral 
pile  with  the  corpse  and  tossed  about  and  scorched  till  she 
lost  consciousness.  Afterward  she  was  obliged  to  perform 
the  function  of  a  slave  to  all  the  other  women  and  children 
of  the  tribe.1 

1  Ross  Cox,  cited  by  Yarrow  in  his  valuable  article  on  Mortuary  Customs  of 
North  American  Indians,  I.,  Report  Bur.  Ethnnl.,  187(.)-8,).  See  aho  Ploss- 
Bartels,  II.,  507-13;  Westermarck,  126-28;  Lebourneau,  Chap.  XV.,  where 
many  other  cases  are  cited. 


314     MISTAKES   REGARDING   CONJUGAL   LOVE 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  previous  writer  on  the  subject  has 
emphasized  the  obligatory  character  of  all  these  perform- 
ances by  widows.  To  me  that  seems  by  far  the  most  impor- 
tant aspect  of  the  question,  as  it  shows  that  the  widows  were 
not  prompted  to  these  actions  by  affectionate  grief  or  self- 
sacrificing  impulses,  but  by  the  command  of  the  men  ;  and 
if  we  bear  in  mind  the  superlative  selfishness  of  these  men 
we  have  no  difficulty  in  comprehending  that  what  makes 
them  compel  the  women  to  do  these  penances  is  the  desire  to 
make  them  eager  to  care  for  the  comfort  and  welfare  of  their 
husbands  lest  the  latter  die  and  they  thus  bring  upon  them- 
selves the  discomforts  and  terrors  of  widowhood. 

Martins  justly  remarks  that  the  great  dependance  of  savage 
women  makes  them  eager  to  please  their  husbands  (121) ; 
and  this  eagerness  would  naturally  be  doubled  by  making 
widowhood  forbidding.  Bruhier  wrote,  in  1743,  that  in 
Corsica  it  was  customary,  in  case  a  man  died,  for  the  women 
to  fall  upon  his  widow  and  give  her  a  sound  drubbing.  This 
custom,  he  adds  significantly,  "prompted  the  women  to 
take  good  care  of  their  husbands." 

It  is  true  that  the  widowers  also  in  some  cases  subjected 
themselves  to  penance  ;  but  usually  they  made  it  very  much 
easier  for  themselves  than  for  the  widows.  In  his  Lettres 
sur  le  Congo  (152)  Edouard  Dupont  relates  that  a  man  who 
has  lost  his  wife  and  wants  to  show  grief  shaves  his  head, 
blackens  himself,  stops  work,  and  sits  in  front  of  his  chimbeque 
several  days.  His  neighbors  meanwhile  feed  him  [no  fasting 
for  Mm  /],  and  at  last  a  friend  brings  him  a  calabash  of  ma- 
lofar  and  tells  him  "  stop  mourning  or  you  will  die  of  starva- 
tion." •"  It  does  not  happen  often,  "  Dupont  adds,  "  that 
the  advice  is  not  promptly  followed." 

Selfish  utilitarianism  does  not  desert  the  savage  even  at  the 
grave  of  his  wife.  An  amusing  illustration  of  the  shallow- 
ness  of  aboriginal  grief  where  it  seems  "  truly  touching  "  may 
be  found  in  an  article  by  the  Rev.  F.  McFarlane  on  British 
New  ^Guinea.1  Scene  :  "  A  woman  is  being  buried.  The 
husband  is  lying  by  the  side  of  the  grave,  apparently  in 

»  Trans.  Ninth  Internal.  Congr.  of  Orientalists,  London,  1893,  p.  781. 


MOURNING    FOR   ENTERTAINMENT          315 

an  agony  of  grief  ;  he  sobs  and  cries  as  if  his  heart  would 
break."  Then  he  jumps  into  the  grave  and  whispers  into 
the  ears  of  the  corpse — what  ?  a  last  farewell  ?  Oh,  no  ! 
"He  is  asking  the  spirit  of  his  wife  to  go  with  him  when  he 
goes  fishing,  and  make  him  successful  also  when  he  goes 
hunting,  or  goes  to  battle,"  etc.  ;  his  last  request  being, 
"  And  please  don't  be  angry  if  I  get  another  wife  !  " 

The  simple  truth  is  that  in  their  grief,  as  in  everything 
else,  savages  are  nothing  but  big  children,  crying  one  mo- 
ment, laughing  the  next.  Whatever  feelings  they  may  have 
are  shallow  and  without  devotion.  If  the  widows  of  Man- 
dans,  Arawaks,  Patagonians,  etc.,  do  not  marry  until  a  year 
after  the  death  of  their  husband  this  is  not  on  account  of 
affectionate  grief,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  because  they  are  not 
allowed  to.  Where^  custom  prescribes  a  different  course, 
they  follow  that  with  the  same  docility.  When  a  Kansas  or 
Osage  wife  finds,  on  the  return  of  a  war-party,  that  she  is  a 
widow,  she  howls  dismally,  but  forthwith  seeks  an  avenger  in 
the  shape  of  a  new  husband.  "After  the  death  of  a  hus- 
band, the  sooner  a  squaw  marries  again,  the  greater  respect 
and  regard  she  is  considered  to  show  for  his  memory." 
(Hunter,  246.)  The  Australian  custom  for  women,  es- 
pecially widows,  is  to  mourn  by  scratching  the  face  and 
branding  the  body.  As  for  the  grief  itself,  its  quality  may 
be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  these  women  sit  day  after  day 
by  the  grave  or  platform,  howling  their  monotonous  dirge, 
but,  as  soon  as  they  are  allowed  to  pause  for  a  meal  they  in- 
dulge in  the  merriest  pranks.  (K.  E.  Jung,  111.) 


MOURNING    FOR   ENTERTAINMENT 

In  many  cases  the  mourning  of  savages,  instead  of  being 
an  expression  of  affection  and  grief,  appears  to  be  simply  a 
mode  of  gratifying  their  love  of  ceremonial  and  excitement. 
That  is,  they  mourn  for  entertainment — I  had  almost  said 
for  fun  ;  and  it  is  easy  to  see  too,  that  vanity  and  superstition 
play  their  role  here  as  in  their  "  ornamenting "  and  every- 
thing else  they  do.  By  the  Abipones  "  women  are  ap- 


316     MISTAKES    REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

pointed  to  go  forward  on  swift  steeds  to  dig  the  grave,  and 
honor  the  funeral  with  lamentations/7  (Dobrizhoifer  II.,  267.) 
During  the  ceremony  of  making  a  skeleton  of  a  body  the 
Patagonians,  as  Falkner  informs  us  (119),  indulge  in  singing 
in  a  mournful  tone  of  voice,  and  striking  the  ground,  to 
frighten  away  the  Valichus  or  Evil  Beings.  Some  of  the 
Indians  also  visit  the  relatives  of  the  dead,  indulging  in 
antics  which  show  that  the  whole  thing  is  done  for  effect  and 
pastime.  ''During  this  visit  of  condolence,"  Falkner  con- 
tinues, "  they  cry,  howl,  and  sing,  in  the  most  dismal  man- 
ner ;  straining  out  tears,  and  pricking  their  arms  and  thighs 
with  sharp  thorns,  to  make  them  bleed.  For  this  s/ioiv  of 
grief  they  are  paid  with  glass  beads,"  etc. 

The  Rev.  W.  Ellis  writes  that  the  Tahitians,  when  someone 
had  died,  "  not  only  wailed  in  the  loudest  and  most  affecting 
tone,  but  tore  their  hair,  rent  their  garments,  and  cut  them- 
selves with  shark's  teeth  or  knives  in  a  most  shocking  man- 
ner." That  this  was  less  an  expression  of  genuine  grief  than 
a  result  of  the  barbarous  love  of  excitement,  follows  from 
what  he  adds  :  that  in  a  milder  form,  this  loud  wailing  and 
cutting  with  shark's  teeth  was  "an  expression  of  joy  as  well 
as  of  grief."  (Pol.  Res.,  I.,  527.)  The  same  writer  relates  in 
his  book  on  Hawaii  (148)  that  when  a  chief  or  king  died  on 
that  island,  "the  people  ran  to  and  fro  without  their  clothes, 
appearing  and  acting  more  like  demons  than  human  beings  ; 
every  vice  was  practised  and  almost  every  species  of  crime 
parpetrated." 

J.  T.  Irving  tells -a  characteristic  story  (226-27)  of  an  Ind- 
ian girl  whom  he  found  one  day  lying  on  a  grave  singing  a 
song  "  so  despairing  that  it  seemed  to  well  out  from  a  broken 
heart."  A  half-breed  friend,  who  thoroughly  understood 
the  native  customs,  marred  his  illusion  by  informing  him 
that  he  had  heard  the  girl  say  to  her  mother  that  as  she  had 
nothing  else  to  do,  she  believed  she  would  go  and  take  a 
bawl  over  her  brother's  grave.  The  brother  had  been  dead 
five  years  ! 

The  whole  question  of  aboriginal  mourning  is  patly 
summed  up  in  a  witty  remark  made  by  James  Adair  more 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WIDOW-BURNING       317 

than  a  century  ago  (1775).  He  has  seen  Choctaw  mourners, 
he  declares  (187),  "pour  out  tears  like  fountains  of  water; 
but  after  thus  tiring  themselves  they  might  with  perfect  pro- 
priety have  asked  themselves, '  And  ivho  is  dead  9 ' ' 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WIDOW-BURKING 

Instructive,  from  several  points  of  view,  is  an  incident  re- 
lated by  McLean  (I.,  254-55)  :  A  carrier  Indian  having  been 
killed,  his  widow  threw  herself  on  the  body,  shrieking  and 
tearing  her  hair.  The  other  females  "  evinced  all  the  exter- 
nal symptoms  of  extreme  grief,  chanting  the  death-song  in  a 
most  lugubrious  tone,  the  tears  streaming  down  their  cheeks, 
and  beating  their  breasts  ; "  yet  as  soon  as  the  rites  were 
ended,  these  women  "  were  seen  as  gay  and  cheerful  as  if  they 
had  returned  from  a  wedding."  The  widow  alone  remained, 
being  "  obliged  by  custom"  to  mourn  day  and  night.  "  The 
bodies  were  formerly  burned  ;  the  relatives  of  the  deceased, 
as  well  as  those  of  the  widow,  being  present,  all  armed  ;  a 
funeral  pile  was  erected,  and  the  body  placed  upon  it.  The 
widow  then  set  fire  to  the  pile,  and  was  compelled  to  stand 
by  it,  anointing  her  breast  with  the  fat  that  oozed  from  the 
body,  until  the  heat  became  insupportable ;  when  the  wretch- 
ed creature,  however,  attempted  to  draw  back,  she  was  thrust 
forward  by  her  husband's  relatives  at  the  point  of  their 
spears,  and  forced  to  endure  the  dreadful  torture  until 
either  the  body  was  reduced  to  ashes,  or  she  herself  almost 
scorched  to  death.  Her  relatives  were  present  merely  to 
preserve  her  life  ;  when  no  longer  able  to  stand  they  dragged 
her  away,  and  this  intervention  often  led  to  bloody  quar- 
rels." 

Obviously  the  compulsory  mourning  enforced  in  McLean's 
day  was  simply  a  mild  survival  of  this  former  torture,  which, 
in  turn,  was  a  survival  of  the  still  earlier  practice  of  actually 
burning  the  widows  alive,  or  otherwise  killing  them,  which 
used  to  prevail  in  various  parts  of  the  world,  as  in  India, 
among  some  Chinese  aboriginal  tribes,  the  old  Germans,  the 
Thracians  and  Scythians,  some  of  the  Greeks,  the  Lithua- 


318     MISTAKES   REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

nians,  the  Basutos,  the  natives  of  Congo  and  other  African 
countries,  the  inhabitants  of  New  Zealand,  the  Solomon  Isl- 
ands, New  Hebrides,  Fiji  Islands,  the  Crees,  Comanches, 
Caribs,  and  various  other  Indian  tribes  in  California,  Darien, 
Peru,  etc.1 

Some  writers  have  advanced  the  opinion  that  jealousy 
prompted  the  men  to  compel  their  wives  to  follow  them  into 
death.  But  the  most  widely  accepted  opinion  is  that  ex- 
pressed long  ago  by  St.  Boniface  when  he  declared  regarding 
the  Wends  that  "  they  preserve  their  conjugal  love  with 
such  ardent  zeal  that  the  wife  refuses  to  survive  her  hus- 
band ;  and  she  is  especially  admired  among  women  who  takes 
her  own  life  in  order  to  be  burnt  on  the  same  pile  with  her 
master."  This  view  is  the  fourth  of  the  mistakes  I  have 
undertaken  to  demolish  in  this  chapter. 

In  the  monumental  work  of  Ploss  and  Bartels  (II.,  514), 
the  opinion  is  advanced  that  the  custom  of  slaughtering 
widows  on  the  death  of  their  husbands  is  the  result  of  the 
grossly  materialistic  view  the  races  in  question  hold  in  regard 
to  a  future  world.  It  is  supposed  that  a  warrior  will  reap- 
pear with  all  his  physical  attributes  and  wants  ;  for  which 
reason  he  is  arranged  in  his  best  clothes,  his  weapons  are 
placed  by  his  side,  and  often  animals  and  slaves  are  slaugh- 
tered to  be  useful  to  him  in  his  new  existence.  His  principal 
servant  and  provider  of  home  comforts,  however,  is  his  wife, 
wherefore  she,  too,  is  expected  to  follow  him. 

This,  no  doubt,  is  the  truth  about  widow-burning ;  but  it 
is  not  the  whole  truth.  To  comprehend  all  the  horrors  of 
the  situation  we  must  realize  clearly  that  it  was  the  fiendish 
selfishness  of  the  men,  extending  even  beyond  death,  which 
thus  subjected  their  wives  to  a  cruel  death,  and  that  the 
widows,  on  their  part,  did  not  follow  them  because  of  the 
promptings  of  affection,  but  either  under  physical  compul- 
sion or  in  consequence  of  a  systematic  course  of  moral  repro- 
bation and  social  persecution  which  made  death  preferable  to 
life.  In  Peru,  for  instance,  where  widows  were  not  killed 

1  Details  and  authorities  in  Ploss-Bartels,  H,  514-17;  Westermarck,  125-26; 
Letourneau,  Chap.  XV. 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   WIDOW-BURNING       319 

against  their  will,  but  were  allowed  to  choose  between  wid- 
owhood and  being  buried  alive,  "the  wife  or  servant  who 
preferred  life  to  the  act  of  martyrdom,  which  was  to  attest 
their  fidelity,  was  an  object  of  general  contempt,  and  devoted 
or  doomed  to  a  life  worse  than  death."  The  consequence  of 
this  was  that  "generally  the  wives  and  servants  offered  them- 
selves voluntarily,  and  there  are  even  instances  of  wives  who 
preferred  suicide  to  prove  their  conjugal  devotion  when  they 
were  prevented  from  descending  to  the  grave  with  the  body  of 
their  consort."  (Rivero  and  Tschudi,  186.)  Usually,  too,  super- 
stition was  called  to  aid  to  make  the  widows  docile.  In  Fiji, 
for  instance,  to  quote  Westermarck's  summing  up  (125)  of  sev- 
eral authorities,  widows  "were  either  buried  alive  or  strangled, 
often  at  their  own  desire,  because  they  believed  that  in  this 
way  alone  could  they  reach  the  realms  of  bliss,  and  that  she 
who  met  her  death  with  the  greatest  devotedness  would  be- 
come the  favorite  wife  in  the  abode  of  spirits.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  widow  who  did  not  permit  herself  to  be  killed  was 
considered  an  adulteress." 

To  realize  vividly  how  far  widow-burning  is  from  being  an 
act  of  voluntary  wifely  devotion  one  must  read  Abbe  Du- 
bois's  account  of  the  matter  (I.,  chap.  21).  He  explains  that, 
however  chaste  and  devoted  a  wife  may  have  been  during  her 
husband's  life,  she  is  treated  worse  than  the  lowest  outcast  if 
she  wants  to  survive  him.  By  a  "voluntary"  death,  on  the 
contrary,  she  becomes  "  an  illustrious  victim  of  conjugal  at- 
tachment," and  is  "  considered  in  the  light  of  a  deity."  On 
the  way  to  the  funeral  pyre  the  accompanying  multitude  stretch 
out  their  hands  toward  her  in  token  of  admiration.  They  be- 
hold her  as  already  translated  into  the  paradise  of  Vishnu  and 
seem  to  envy  her  happy  lot.  The  women  run  up  to  her  to 
receive  her  blessing,  and  she  knows  that  afterward  crowds  of 
votaries  will  daily  frequent  her  shrine.  The  Brahmans  com- 
pliment her  on  her  heroism.  (Sometimes  drugs  are  adminis- 
tered to  stifle  her  fears. )  She  knows,  too,  that  it  is  useless 
to  falter  at  the  last  moment,  as  a  change  of  heart  would  be 
an  eternal  disgrace,  not  only  to  herself  but  to  her  relatives, 
who,  therefore,  stand  around  with  sabres  and  rifles  to  intimi- 


320     MISTAKES    REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

date  her.  In  short,  with  satanic  ingenuity,  every  possible 
appeal  is  made  to  her  family  pride,  vanity,  longing  for  future 
bliss  and  divine  honors  after  life,  enforced  by  the  knowledge 
that  if  she  lives  earth  will  be  a  hell  to  her,  so  that  refusal  is 
next  to  impossible.  And  this  is  the  much-vaunted  "  conju- 
gal affection  and  fidelity  "  of  Hindoo  widows  ! 


FEMINIZE   DEVOTION    IN"   ASTCIEXT   LITERATURE 

The  practice  of  "  voluntary  "  widow-burning  is,  as  the 
foregoing  shows,  about  as  convincing  proof  of  wifely  devo- 
tion as  the  presence  of  an  ox  in  the  butcher's  stall  is  proof  of 
his  gastronomic  devotion  to  man.  In  reality  it  is,  as.  I  have 
said,  simply  the  most  diabolical  aspect  of  man's  aboriginal 
disposition  to  look  on  woman  as  made  solely  for  his  own  com- 
fort and  pleasure,  here  and  hereafter.  Now  it  is  very  in- 
structive to  note  that  whenever  there  is  a  story  of  conjugal 
devotion  in  Oriental  or  ancient  classical  literature  it  is  nearly 
always  inspired  by  the  same  spirit — the  idea  that  the  woman, 
as  an  inferior  being,  should  subject  herself  to  any  amount  of 
suffering  if  she  can  thereby  save  her  sacred  lord  and  master 
the  slightest  pang.  For  instance,  an  old  Arabic  writer 
(Kamil  Mobarrad,  p.  529)  relates  how  a  devoted  wife  whose 
husband  was  condemned  to  death  disfigured  her  beautiful 
face  in  order  to  let  him  die  with  the  consoling  feeling  that 
she  would  not  marry  again.  The  current  notion  that  such 
stories  are  proof  of  conjugal  devotion  is  the  fifth  of  the  mis- 
takes to  be  corrected  in  this  chapter.  These  stories  were 
written  by  men,  selfish  men,  who  intended  them  as  lessons  to 
indicate  to  the  women  what  was  expected  of  them.  Were  it 
otherwise,  why  should  not  the  men,  too,  be  represented,  at 
least  occasionally,  as  devoted  and  self-sacrificing  ?  Hector  is 
tender  to  Andromache,  and  in  the  Sanscrit  drama,  Kausika's 
Wrath,  the  King  and  the  Queen  contend  with  one  another  as 
to  who  shall  be  the  victim  of  that  wrath  ;  but  these  are  the 
only  instances  of  the  kind  that  occur  to  me.  This  interesting 
question  will  be  further  considered  in  the  chapters  on  India 
and  Greece,  where  corroborative  stories  will  be  quoted.  Here  I 


WIVES   ESTEEMED   AS   MOTHERS   ONLY       321 

wish  only  to  emphasize  again  the  need  of  caution  and  suspicion 
ill  interpreting  the  evidence  relating  to  the  human  feelings. 


WIVES   ESTEEMED    AS    MOTHERS   ONLY 

So  much  for  the  feminine  aspect  of  conjugal  devotion.  In 
regard  to  the  masculine  aspect  something  must  be  added  to 
what  was  said  in  preceding  pages  (307-10).  We  saw  there 
that  primitive  man  desires  wives  chiefly  as  drudges  and  con- 
cubines. It  was  also  indicated  briefly  that  wives  are  valued 
as  mothers  of  daughters  who  can  be  sold  to  suitors.  As  a 
rule,  sons  are  more  desired  than  daughters,  as  they  increase  a 
man's  power  and  authority,  and  because  they  alone  can  keep 
up  the  superstitious  rites  which  are  deemed  necessary  for  the 
salvation  of  the  father's  selfish  old  soul.  Now  the  non-exist- 
ence or  extreme  rarity  of  conjugal  attachment — not  to  speak 
of  affection — is  painfully  indicated  by  the  circumstance  that 
wives  were,  among  many  races,  valued  (apart  from  grossly  utili- 
tarian and  sensual  motives)  as  mothers  only,  and  that  the 
men  had  a  right,  of  which  they  commonly  availed  themselves, 
of  repudiating  a  wife  if  she  proved  barren.  On  the  lower 
Congo,  says  Dupont  (96),  a  wife  is  not  respected  unless  she 
has  at  least  three  children.  Among  the  Somali,  barren 
women  are  dieted  and  dosed,  and  if  that  proves  unavailing 
they  are  usually  chased  away.  (Paulitschke,  B.  E.  A.  8.,  30.) 
If  a  Greenlander's  wife  did  not  bear  him  any  children  he  gen- 
erally took  another  one.  (Cranz,  L,  147.)  Among  the  Mexi- 
can Aztecs  divorce,  even  from  a  concubine,  was  not  easy  ; 
but  in  case  of  barrenness  even  the  principal  wife  could  be 
repudiated.  (Bancroft,  II.,  263-65.)  The  ancient  Greeks,  Ro- 
mans, and  Germans,  the  Chinese  and  Japanese,  could  divorce 
a  wife  on  account  of  barrenness.  For  a  Hindoo  the  laws  of 
Manu  indicate  that  "  a  barren  wife  may  be  dispensed  with  in 
the  eighth  year  ;  6ne  whose  children  all  die,  in  the  tenth  ; 
one  who  bears  only  daughters,  in  the  eleventh."  The  tragic 
import  of  such  bare  statements  is  hardly  realized  until  we 
come  upon  particular  instances  like  those  related  by  the  Ind- 
ian authoress  Ramabai  (15) :  "  Of  the  four  wives  of  a  certain 


322     MISTAKES   REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

prince,  the  eldest  had  borne  him  two  sons  ;  she  was  therefore 
his  favorite,  and  her  face  beamed  with  happiness. 
But  oh  !  what  contrast  to  this  happiness  was  presented  in  the 
apartments  of  the  childless  three.  Their  faces  were  sad  and 
careworn  ;  there  seemed  no  hope  for  them  in  this  world, 
since  their  lord  was  displeased  with  them  on  account  of  their 
misfortune."  "A  lady  friend  of  mine  in  Calcutta  told  me 
that  her  husband  had  warned  her  not  to  give  birth  to  a  girl, 
the  first  time,  or  he  would  never  see  her  face  again."  An- 
other woman  "  had  been  notified  by  her  husband  that  if  she 
persisted  in  bearing  daughters  she  should  be  superseded  by 
another  wife,  have  coarse  clothes  to  wear,  scanty  food  to 
eat,"  etc.1 

WHY    CONJUGAL   PRECEDES   ROMANTIC    LOVE 

The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  the  testimony  collected 
in  this  chapter  is  that  genuine  conjugal  love — the  affection 
for  a  wife  for  her  oiun  sake — is,  like  romantic  love,  a  prod- 
uct chiefly  of  modern  civilization. 

I  say  chiefly,  because  I  am  convinced  that  conjugal  love  was 
known  sooner  than  romantic  love,  and  for  a  very  simple 
reason.  Among  those  of  the  lower  races  where  the  sexes 
were  not  separated  in  youth,  a  license  prevailed  which  led  to 
shallow,  premature,  temporary  alliances  that  precluded  all 
idea  of  genuine  affection,  even  had  these  folk  been  capable  of 
such  a  sentiment ;  while  among  those  tribes  and  peoples  that 
practised  the  custom  of  separating  the  boys  and  girls  from 
the  earliest  age,  and  not  allowing  them  to  become  acquainted 
till  after  marriage,  the  growth  of  real,  prematrimonial  affection 
was,  of  course,  equally  impossible.  In  married  life  this  was 
different.  Living  together  for  years,  having  a  common  interest 
in  their  children,  sharing  the  same  joys  and  sorrows,  husband 
and  wife  would  learn  the  rudiments  of  sympathy,  and  in 
happy  cases  there  would  be  an  opportunity  for  the  growth  of 
liking,  attachment,  fondness,  or  even,  in  exceptional  instances, 
of  affection.  I  cannot  sufficiently  emphasize  the  fact  that 

1  For  many  other  cases  see  references  in  footnotes  3  and  4,  Westermarck,  378. 


WHY  CONJUGAL  PRECEDES  ROMANTIC  LOVE   323 

my  theory  is  psychological  or  cultural,  not  chronological. 
The  fact  that  a  man  lives  in  the  year  1900  makes  it  no  more 
self-evident  that  he  should  be  capable  of  sexual  affection  than 
the  fact  that  a  man  lived  seven  centuries  before  Christ  makes 
it  self-evident  that  he  could  not  love  affectionately.  Hector 
and  Andromache  existed  only  in  the  brain  of  Homer,  who 
was  in  many  respects  thousands  of  years  ahead  of  his  con- 
temporaries. Whether  such  a  couple  could  really  have  ex- 
isted at  that  time  among  the  Trojans,  or  the  Greeks,  we  do 
not  know,  but  in  any  case  it  would  have  been  an  exception, 
proving  the  rule  by  the  painful  contrast  of  the  surrounding 
barbarism. 

Exceptions  may  possibly  occur  among  the  lower  races, 
through  happy  combinations  of  circumstances.  C.  C.  Jones 
describes  (69)  a  picture  of  conjugal  devotion  among  Cherokee 
Indians  :  "By  the  side  of  the  aged  Mico  Tomo-chi-chi,  as, 
thin  and  weak,  he  lies  upon  his  blanket,  hourly  expecting  the 
summons  of  the  pale-king,  we  see  the  sorrowing  form  of  his 
old  wife,  Scenauki,  bending  over  and  fanning  him  with  a 
bunch  of  feathers."  In  his  work  on  the  Indians  of  Cali- 
fornia (271),  Powers  writes  :  "  An  aged  Achomauri  lost  his 
wife,  to  whom  he  had  been  married  probably  half  a  cen- 
tury, and  he  tarred  his  face  in  mourning  for  her  as  though 
he  were  a  woman — an  act  totally  unprecedented,  and  re- 
garded by  the  Indians  as  evincing  an  extraordinary  affec- 
tion/' St.  John  relates  the  following  incident  in  his  book  on 
Borneo  : 

"  Ijan,  a  Balau  chief,  was  bathing  with  his  wife  in  the 
Lingga  River,  a  place  notorious  for  man-eating  alligators, 
when  Indra  Lela,  passing  in  a  boat,  remarked,  'I  have  just 
seen  a  very  large  animal  swimming  up  the  stream/  Upon 
hearing  this,  Ijan  told  his  wife  to  go  up  the  steps  and  he 
would  follow.  She  got  safely  up,  but  he,  stopping  to  wash 
his  feet,  was  seized  by  the  alligator,  dragged  into  the  middle 
of  the  stream,  and  disappeared  from  view.  His  wife,  hearing 
a  cry,  turned  round,  and  seeing  her  husband's  fate,  sprang 
into  the  river,  shrieking  'Take  me  also/  and  dived  down  at 
the  spot  where  she  had  seen  the  alligator  sink  with  his  prey. 
No  persuasion  could  induce  her  to  come  out  of  the  water  ; 


324     MISTAKES   REGARDING   CONJUGAL   LOVE 

she  swam  about,  diving  in  all  the  places  most  dreaded  from 
being  a  resort  of  ferocious  reptiles,  seeking  to  die  with  her 
husband  ;  at  last  her  friends  came  down  and  forcibly  removed 
her  to  their  house." 

These  stories  certainly  imply  conjugal  attachment,  but  is 
there  any  indication  in  them  of  affection  ?  The  Cherokee 
squaw  mourns  the  impending  death  of  her  husband,  which  is 
a  selfish  feeling.  The  Calif ornian,  similarly,  laments  the 
loss  of  his  spouse.  The  only  thing  he  does  is  to  "  tar  his  face 
in  mourning,"  and  even  this  is  regarded  by  the  other  Indians 
as  "extraordinary"  and  "unprecedented."  As  for  the  wom- 
an in  the  third  story,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  her  act  is  one  of 
selfish  despair,  not  of  self-sacrifice  for  her  husband's  sake. 
We  shall  see  in  later  chapters  that  women  of  her  grade  aban- 
don themselves  to  suicidal  impulses,  not  only  where  there  is 
occasion  for  real  distress,  but  often  on  the  most  trivial  pre- 
texts. A  few  days  later,  in  all  probability,  that  same  woman 
would  have  been  ready  to  marry  another  man.  There  is  no 
evidence  of  altruistic  action — action  for  another's  benefit — 
in  any  of  these  incidents,  and  altruism  is  the  only  test  of  gen- 
uine affection  as  distinguished  from  mere  liking,  attachment, 
and  fondness,  which,  as  was  explained  in  the  chapter  on 
Affection,  are  the  products  of  selfishness,  more  or  less  dis- 
guised. If  this  distinction  had  been  borne  in  mind  a  vast 
amount  of  confusion  could  have  been  avoided  in  works  of 
exploration  and  the  anthropological  treatises  based  on  them. 
Westermarck,  for  instance,  cites  on  page  357  a  number  of 
authors  who  asserted  that  sexual  affection,  or  even  the  ap- 
pearance of  it,  was  unknown  to  the  Hovas  of  Madagascar,^ he 
Gold  Coast,  and  Winnabah  natives,  the  Kabyles,  the  Beni- 
Amer,  the  Chittagong  Hill  Tribes,  the  Ponape  islanders,  the 
Eskimo,  the  Kutchin,  the  Iroquois,  and  North  American 
Indians  in  general  ;  while  on  the  next  pages  he  cites  approv- 
ingly authors  who  fancied  they  had  discovered  sexual  affection 
among  tribes  some  of  whom  (Australians,  Andamanese,  Bush- 
mans)  are  far  below  the  peoples  just  mentioned.  The  cause 
of  this  discrepancy  lies  not  in  these  races  themselves,  but  in 
the  inaccurate  use  of  words,  and  the  different  standards  of 


WHY  CONJUGAL  PRECEDES  ROMANTIC  LOVE   325 

p 

the  writers,  some  accepting  the  rubbing  of  noses  or  other 
sc xiuil  caresses  as  evidence  of  "affection,"  while  otliers  take 
any  acts  indicating  fondness,  attachment,  or  a  suicidal  im- 
pulse as  signs  of  it.  In  a  recent  work  by  Tyrrell  (105),  I  find 
it  stated  that  the  Eskimo  marriage  is  "purely  a  love  union  ;" 
and  in  reading  on  I  discover  that  the  author's  idea  of  a  "love 
union"  is  the  absence  of  a  marriage  ceremony  !  Yet  I  have 
no  doubt  that  Tyrrell  will  be  cited  hereafter  as  evidence  that 
love  unions  are  common  among  the  Eskimos.  So,  again, 
when  Lumholtz  writes  (213)  that  an  Australian  woman  "may 
happen  to  change  husbands  many  times  in  her  life,  but  some- 
times, despite  the  fact  that  her  consent  is  not  asked,  she  gets 
the  one  she  loves— for  a  black  woman  can  love  too" — we  are 
left  entirely  in  the  dark  as  to  what  kind  of  "'love  "  is  meant — 
sensual  or  sentimental,  liking,  attachment,  fondness,  or  real 
affection.  Surely  it  is  time  to  put  an  end  to  such  confusion, 
at  least  in  scientific  treatises,  and  to  acquire  in  psychological 
discussions  the  precision  which  we  always  employ  in  describ- 
ing the  simplest  weeds  or  insects. 

Morgan,  the  great  authority  on  the  Iroquois — the  most  in- 
telligent of  North  American  Indians — lived  long  enough 
among  them  to  realize  vaguely  that  there  must  be  a  difference 
between  sexual  attachment  before  and  after  marriage,  and 
that  the  latter  is  an  earlier  phenomenon  in  human  evolution. 
After  declaring  that  among  the  Indians  "marriage  was  not 
founded  on  the  affections  .  .  .  but  was  regulated  exclu- 
sively as  a  matter  of  physical  necessity,"  he  goes  on  to  say  : 
"  Affection  after  marriage  would  naturally  spring  up  between 
the  parties  from  association,  from  habit,  and  from  mutual 
dependence  ;  but  of  that  marvellous  passion  which  originates 
in  a  higher  development  of  the  passions  of  the  human  heart, 
and  is  founded  -upon  a  cultivation  of  the  affections  between 
the  sexes,  they  were  entirely  ignorant.  In  their  tempera- 
ments they  were  below  this  passion  in  its  simplest  forms." 
He  is  no  doubt  right  in  declaring  that  the  Indians  before 
marriage  were  "in  their  temperaments"  below  affectionate 
love  "  in  its  simplest  forms"  ;  but,  that  being  so,  it  is  difficult 
to  see  how  they  could  have  acquired  real  affection  after  mar- 


326     MISTAKES   REGARDING    CONJUGAL   LOVE 

riage.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  know  that  they  treated  their 
wives  with  a  selfishness  which  is  entirely  incompatible  with 
true  affection.  The  Rev.  Peter  Jones,  moreover,  an  Indian 
himself,  tells  us  in  his  book  on  the  Ojibwas  :  "  I  have  scarcely 
ever  seen  anything  like  social  intercourse  between  husband 
and  wife,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  the  women  say  little  in 
presence  of  the  men/'  Obviously,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
passage  quoted,  Morgan  should  have  used  the  word  attach- 
ment in  place  of  affection.  Bulmer  (by  accident,  I  suspect) 
uses  the  right  word  when  he  says  (Brough  Smyth,  77)  that 
Australians,  notwithstanding  their  brutal  forms  of  marriage, 
often  "get  much  attached  to  each  other."  At  the  same  time 
it  is  easy  to  show  that,  if  not  among  Australians  or  Indians, 
at  any  rate  with  such  a  people  as  the  ancient  Greeks,  conjugal 
affection  may  have  existed  while  romantic  love  was  still  impos- 
sible. The  Greeks  looked  down  on  their  women  as  inferior 
beings.  Now  one  can  feel  affection — conjugal  or  friendly — 
toward  an  inferior,  but  one  cannot  feel  adoration — and  ador- 
ation is  absolutely  essential  to  romantic  love.  Before  ro- 
mantic love  could  be  born  it  was  necessary  that  women 
should  not  only  be  respected  as  equal  to  man  bu  t  worshipped 
as  his  superior.  This  was  not  done  by  any  of  the  lower  or 
ancient  races  ;  hence  romantic  love  is  a  peculiarly  modern 
sentiment,  later  than  any  other  form  of  human  affection. 


OBSTACLES  TO  KOMANTIC  LOVE 

When  Shakspere  wrote  that  "  The  course  of  true  love  never 
did  run  smooth  "  he  had  in  mind  individual  cases  of  court- 
ship. But  what  is  true  of  individuals  also  applies  to  the 
story  of  love  itself.  For  many  thousands  of  years  savagery 
and  barbarism  "proved  an  unrelenting  foe  to  love,"  and  it 
was  with  almost  diabolical  ingenuity  that  obstacles  to  its  birth 
and  growth  were  maintained  and  multiplied.  It  was  crushed, 
balked,  discountenanced,  antagonized,  discredited,  disheart- 
ened so  persistently  that  the  wonder  is  not  that  there  should 
be  so  little  true  love  even  at  the  present  day,  but  that  there  is 
any  at  all.  A  whole  volume  might  be  written  on  the  Obsta- 
cles to  Love  ;  my  original  plan  for  this  book  included  a  long 
chapter  on  this  matter  ;  but  partly  to  avoid  repetition,  partly 
to  save  space,  I  will  condense  my  material  to  a  few  pages, 
considering  briefly  the  following  obstacles  :  I.  Ignorance  and 
stupidity.  II.  Coarseness  and  obscenity.  III.  War.  IV. 
Cruelty.  V.  Masculine  selfishness.  VI.  Contempt  for  wom- 
en. VII.  Capture  and  sale  of  brides.  VIII.  Infant  mar- 
riages. IX.  Prevention  of  free  choice.  X.  Separation  of 
the  sexes.  XI.  Sexual  taboos.  XII.  Eace  aversion.  XIII. 
Multiplicity  of  languages.  XIV.  Social  barriers.  XV.  Re- 
ligious prejudice. 

I.    IGNORANCE   AND   STUPIDITY 

Intelligence  alone  does  not  imply  a  capacity  for  romantic 
love.  Dogs  are  the  most  intelligent  of  all  animals,  but  they 
know  nothing  of  love  ;  the  most  intelligent  nations  of  an- 
tiquity— the  Greeks,  Romans  and  Hebrews — were  strangers 
to  this  feeling  ;  and  in  our  times  we  have  seen  that  such  in- 
telligent persons  as  Tolstoi,  Zola,  Goncourt,  Flaubert  have 
been  confessedly  unable  to  experience  real  love  such  as  Tur- 

327 


328  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

genieff  held  up  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  no 
genuine  love  without  intelligence.  It  is  true  that  maternal 
love  exists  among  the  lowly,  but  that  is  an  instinct  developed 
by  natural  selection,  because  without  it  the  race  could  not 
have  persisted.  Conjugal  attachment  also  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  race  ;  whereas  ro- 
mantic love  is  not  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  race, 
but  is  merely  a  means  for  its  improvement ;  wherefore  it  de- 
veloped slowly,  keeping  pace  with  the  growth  of  the  intel- 
lectual powers  of  discrimination,  the  gradual  refinement  of 
the  emotions,  and  the  removal  of  diverse  obstacles  created  by 
selfishness,  coarseness,  foolish  taboos,  and  prejudices.  A  sav- 
age lives  entirely  in  his  senses,  hence  sensual  love  is  the  only 
kind  he  can  know.  His  love  is  as  coarse  and  simple  as  his 
music,  which  is  little  more  than  a  monotonous  rhythmic  noise. 
Just  as  a  man,  unless  he  has  musical  culture,  cannot  under- 
stand a  Schumann  symphony,  so,  unless  he  has  intellectual  cult- 
ure, he  cannot  love  a  woman  as  Schumann  loved  Clara  Wieck. 
Stupid  persons,  men  and  women  with  blunt  intellects,  also 
have  blunt  feelings,  excepting  those  of  a  criminal,  vengeful 
kind.  Savages  have  keener  senses  than  wre  have,  but  their 
intellect  and  emotions  are  blunt  and  untrained.  An  Austra- 
lian cannot  count  above  ten,  and  Galton  says  (132)  that  Da- 
maras  in  counting  "puzzle  very  much  after  five,  because  110 
spare  hand  remains  to  grasp  and  secure  the  fingers  that  are 
required  for  units."  Spix  and  Martius  (384)  found  it  very 
difficult  to  get  any  information  from  the  Brazilian  (Coroado) 
because  "  scarcely  has  one  begun  to  question  him  about  his 
language  when  he  gets  impatient,  complains  of  headache,  and 
shows  that  he  cannot  endure  this  effort " — for  he  is  used  to 
living  entirely  in  and  for  his  senses.  Fancy  such  savages 
writing  or  reading  a  book  like  The  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor 
and  you  will  understand  why  stupidity  is  an  obstacle  to  love, 
and  realize  the  unspeakable  folly  of  the  notion  that  love  is 
always  and  everywhere  the  same.  The  savage  has  no  imag- 
ination, and  imagination  is  the  organ  of  romantic  love ; 
without  it  there  can  be  no  sympathy,  and  without  sympathy 
there  can  be  no  love. 


COARSENESS   AND   OBSCENITY  329 


II.    COARSENESS    AND    OBSCENITY 

Kissing  and  other  caresses  are,  as  we  have  seen,  practices 
unknown  to  savages.  Their  nerves  being  too  coarse  to  ap- 
preciate even  the  more  refined  forms  of  sensualism,  it  follows 
of  necessity  that  they  are  too  coarse  to  experience  the  subtle 
manifestations  of  imaginative  sentimental  love.  Their  na- 
tional addiction  to  obscene  practices  and  conversation  proves 
an  insuperable  obstacle  to  the  growth  of  refined  sexual  feel- 
ings. Details  given  in  later  chapters  will  show  that  what 
Turner  says  of  the  Samoans,  "  From  their  childhood  their 
ears  are  familiar  with  the  most  obscene  conversation  ; "  and 
what  the  Rev.  George  Taplan  writes  of  the  "  immodest  and 
lewd  "  dances  of  the  Australians,  applies  to  the  lower  races  in 
general.  The  history  of  love  is,  indeed,  epitomized  in  the 
evolution  of  the  dance  from  its  aboriginal  obscenity  and  licen- 
tiousness to  its  present  function  as  chiefly  a  means  of  bring- 
ing young  people  together  and  providing  innocent  opportuni- 
ties for  courtship ;  two  extremes  differing  as  widely  as  the 
coarse  drum  accompaniment  of  a  primitive  dance  from  the 
sentimental  melodies,  soulful  harmonies,  and  exquisite  orches- 
tral colors  of  a  Strauss  waltz.  A  remark  made  by  Taine  on 
Burns  suggests  how  even  acquired  coarseness  in  a  mind  natu- 
rally refined  may  crush  the  capacity  for  true  love  :  "He  had 
enjoyed  too  much.  .  .  .  Debauch  had  all  but  spoiled 
his  fine  imagination,  which  had  before  been  '  the  chief  source 
of  his  happiness ' ;  and  he  confessed  that,  instead  of  tender 
reveries,  he  had  now  nothing  but  sensual  desires/' 

The  poets  have  done  much  to  confuse  the  public  mind  in 
this  matter  by  their  fanciful  and  impossible  pastoral  lovers. 
The  remark  made  in  my  first  book,  that  "only  an  educated 
mind  can  feel  romantic  love,"  led  one  of  its  reviewers  to  re- 
mark, half  indignantly,  half  mournfully,  "  There  goes  the 
pastoral  poetry  of  the  world  at  a  single  stroke  of  the  pen." 
Well,  let  it  go.  I  am  quite  sure  that  if  these  poetic  dreamers 
had  ever  come  across  a  shepherdess  in  real  life— dirty,  un- 
kempt, ignorant,  coarse,  immoral — they  would  themselves 
have  made  haste  to  disavow  their  heroines  and  seek  less  mal- 


330  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC   LOVE 

odorous  "  maidens  "  for  embodiments  of  their  exalted  fancies 
of  love.1  Richard  Wagner  was  promptly  disillusioned  when 
he  came  across  some  of  those  modern  shepherdesses,  the  Swiss 
dairy-maids.  "There  are  magnificent  women  here  in  the 
Oberland,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  but  only  so  to  the  eye ; 
they  are  all  tainted  with  rabid  vulgarity/' 

« 

III.     WAE 

Herbert  Spencer  has  devoted  some  eloquent  pages2  to  show- 
ing that  along  with  chronic  militancy  there  goes  a  brutal 
treatment  of  women,  whereas  industrial  tribes  are  likely  to 
treat  their  wives  and  daughters  well.  To  militancy  is  due 
the  disregard  of  women's  claims  shown  in  stealing  or  buying 
them  ,  the  inequality  of  status  between  the  sexes  entailed  by 
polygamy  ;  the  use  of  women  as  laboring  slaves,  the  life-and- 
death  power  over  wife  and  child.  To  which  we  may  add  that 
war  proves  an  obstacle  to  love,  by  fostering  cruelty  and  smoth- 
ering sympathy,  and  all  the  other  tender  feelings  ;  by  giving 
the  coarsest  masculine  qualities  of  aggressiveness  and  brute 
prowess  the  aspect  of  cardinal  virtues  and  causing  the  femi- 
nine virtues  of  gentleness,  mercy,  kindness,  to  be  despised, 
and  women  themselves  to  be  esteemed  only  in  so  far  as  they 
appropriate  masculine  qualities  ;  and  by  fostering  rape  and 
licentiousness  in  general.  When  Plutarch  wrote  that  "  the 
most  warlike  nations  are  the  most  addicted  to  love,"  he  meant, 
of  course,  lust.  In  wars  of  the  past  no  incentive  to  brutal 
courage  proved  so  powerful  as  the  promise  that  the  soldiers 
might  have  the  women  of  captured  cities.  ' '  Plunder  if  you 
succeed,  and  paradise  if  you  fall.  Female  captives  in  the  one 
case,  celestial  houris  in  the  other  " — such  was,  according  to 
Burckhardt,  the  promise  to  their  men  given  by  Wahabi  chiefs 
on  the  eve  of  battle. 

1  The  poets  and  a  certain  class  of  novelists  also  like  to  dwell  on  the  love-matches 
among  peasants  as  compared  with  commercial  city  marriages.     As  a  matter  of 
fact,  in  no  class  do  sordid  pecuniary  matters  play  so  great  a  role  as  among  peas- 
ants.    (Of.  Grosse.  P.  d.  P.,  16.) 

2  Princ.  ofSoc.,  American  Edition,  pp.  756,  772,  784,  787. 


MASCULINE   SELFISHNESS  331 


IY.     CRUELTY 

Love  depends  on  sympathy,  and  sympathy  is  incompatible 
with  cruelty.  It  has  been  maintained  that  the  notorious  cru- 
elty of  the  lower  and  war-like  races  is  manifested  only  tow- 
ard enemies ;  but  this  is  an  error.  Some  of  the  instances 
cited  under  "  Sentimental  Murder"  and  "  Sympathy"  show 
how  often  superstitious  and  utilitarian  considerations  smother 
all  the  family  feelings.  Three  or  four  more  illustrations  may 
be  added  here.  Burton  says  of  the  East  Africans,  that ' '  when 
childhood  is  past,  the  father  and  son  become  natural  enemies, 
after  the  manner  of  wild  beasts."  The  Bedouins  are  not  com- 
pelled by  law  or  custom  to  support  their  aged  parents,  and 
Burckhardt  (156)  came  across  such  men  whom  their  sons 
would  have  allowed  to  perish.  Among  the  Somals  it  fre- 
quently occurs  that  an  old  father  is  simply  driven  away  and 
exposed  to  distress  and  starvation.  Nay,  incredible  cases  are 
related  of  fathers  being  sold  as  slaves,  or  killed.  The  African 
missionary,  Moffat,  one  day  came  across  an  old  woman  who 
had  been  left  to  die  within  an  enclosure.  He  asked  her  why 
she  had  been  thus  deserted,  and  she  replied  :  "  I  am  old,  you 
see,  and  no  longer  able  to  serve  them  [her  grown  children] . 
When  they  kill  game,  I  am  too  feeble  to  aid  in  carrying  home 
the  flesh  ;  I  am  incapable  of  gathering  wood  to  make  fire,  and 
I  cannot  carry  their  children  on  my  back  as  I  used  to  do." 

V.     MASCULINE  SELFISHNESS 

The  South  American  Chiquitos,  as  Dobrizhoffer  informs 
us  (II.,  264),  used  to  kill  the  wife  of  a  sick  man,  believing 
her  to  be  the  cause  of  his  illness,  and  fancying  that  his 
recovery  would  follow  her  disappearance.  Fijians  have  been 
known  to  kill  and  eat  their  wives,  when  they  had  no  other  use 
for  them.  Carl  Bock  (275)  says  of  the  Malays  of  Sumatra, 
that  the  men  are  extremely  indolent  and  make  the  women 
their  beasts  of  burden  (as  the  lower  races  do  in  general). 

"  I  have,"  he  says,  "  continually  met  a  file  of  women  car- 
rying loads  of  rice  or  coffee  on  their  heads,  while  the  men 


332  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC   LOVE 

would  follow,  lazily  lounging  along,  with  a  long  stick  in  their 
hands,  like  shepherds  driving  a  flock  of  sheep.  .  .  . 
I  have  seen  a  man  go  into  his  house,  where  his  wife  was 
lying  asleep  on  the  hed,  rudely  awake  her,  and  order  her  to 
lie  on  the  floor,  while  he  made  himself  comfortable  on  the 
cushions." 

But  I  need  not  add  in  this  place  any  further  instances  to 
the  hundreds  given  in  other  parts  of  this  volume,  revealing 
uncivilized  man's  disposition  to  regard  woman  as  made  for 
his  convenience,  both  in  this  world  and  the  next.  Nor  is  it 
necessary  to  add  that  such  an  attitude  is  an  insuperable  obsta 
cle  to  love,  which  in  its  essence  is  altruistic. 


VI.    CONTEMPT   FOE   WOMEN 

As  late  as  the  sixth  century  the  Christian  Provincial  Coun- 
cil of  Macon  debated  the  question  whether  women  have  souls. 
I  know  of  no  early  people,  savage,  barbarous,  semi-civilized 
or  civilized — from  the  Australian  to  the  Greek — in  which  the 
men  did  not  look  down  on  the  women  as  inferior  beings. 
Now  contempt  is  the  exact  opposite  of  adoration,  and  where 
it  prevails  there  can  of  course  be  no  romantic  love.1 

VII.     CAPTURE   AND   SALE   OF   BRIDES 

In  the  Homeric  poems  we  read  much  about  young  women 
who  were  captured  and  forced  to  become  the  concubines  of 
the  men  who  had  slain  their  fathers,  brothers,  and  husbands. 
Other  brides  are  referred  to  as  dA^eo-i'/Souu,  wooed  with  rich 
presents,  literally  "  bringing  in  oxen."  Among  other  ancient 
nations — Assyrians,  Hebrews,  Babylonians,  Chaldeans,  etc., 
brides  had  to  be  bought  with  property  or  its  equivalent  in 
service  (as  in  the  case  of  Jacob  and  Eachel).  Serving  for  a 
bride  until  the  parents  feel  repaid  for  their  selfish  trouble  in 
bringing  her  up,  also  prevails  among  savages  as  low  as  the 

1  The  proofs  of  man's  universal  contempt  for  woman  are  to  be  found  in  the 
chapter  on  "  Adoration,"  and  everywhere  in  this  book.  Many  additional  illus- 
trations are  contained  in  several  articles  by  Crawley  in  the  Jour.  Anthrop. 
Inst.,  Vol.  XXIV. 


CAPTURE   AND   SALE    OF   BRIDES  333 

African  Bushman  and  the  Fuegian  Indians,  and  is  not  there- 
fore, as  Herbert  Spencer  holds,  a  higher  or  later  form  of 
"  courtship  "  than  capture  or  purchase.  But  it  is  less  common 
than  purchase,  which  has  been  a  universal  custom.  "  All  over 
the  earth,"  says  Letourneau  (137), "  among  all  races  and  at 
all  times,  wherever  history  gives  us  information,  we  find 
well-authenticated  examples  of  marriage  by  purchase,  which 
allows  us  to  assert  that  during  the  middle  period  of  civiliza- 
tion, the  right  of  parents  over  their  children,  and  especially 
over  their  daughters,  included  in  all  countries  the  privilege 
of  selling  them."  In  Australia  a  knife  or  a  glass  bottle  has 
been  held  sufficient  compensation  for  a  wife.  A  Tartar  par- 
ent will  sell  his  daughter  for  a  certain  number  of  sheep, 
horses,  oxen,  or  pounds  of  butter ;  and  so  on  in  innumerable 
regions.  As  an  obstacle  to  free  choice  and  love  unions, 
nothing  more  effective  could  be  devised  ;  for  what  Burckhardt 
writes  (B.  and  W.,  L,  278)  of  the  Egyptian  peasant  girls  lias 
a  general  application.  They  are,  he  says,  "  sold  in  matri- 
mony by  their  fathers  to  the  highest  bidders;  a  circumstance 
that  frequently  causes  the  most  mean  and  unfeeling  trans- 
actions." 

In  his  collection  of  Esthonian  folk-songs  Neus  has  a  poem 
which  pathetically  pictures  the  fate  of  a  bartered  bride.  A 
girl  going  to  the  field  to  cut  flax  meets  a  young  man  who  in- 
forms her  bluntly  that  she  belongs  to  him,  as  he  has  bought 
her.  "  And  who  undertook  to  sell  me  ?  "  she  asks.  "  Your 
father  and  mother,  your  sister  and  brother,"  he  replies,  add- 
ing frankly  that  he  won  the  father's  favor  with  a  present  of  a 
horse,  the  mother's  with  a  cow,  the  sister's  with  a  bracelet, 
the  brother's  with  an  ox.  Then  the  unwilling  bride  lifts  her 
voice  and  curses  the  family  :  ".May  the  father's  horse  rot 
under  him  ;  may  the  mother's  cow  yield  blood  instead  of 
milk  ! "  Hundreds  of  millions  of  bartered  brides  have  borne 
their  fate  more  meekly.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  what  has 
been  said  here  applies  a  fortiori  to  captured  brides. 


334  OBSTACLES   TO   ROMANTIC   LOVE 


VIII.     INFAKT   MARRIAGES 

Of  the  diabolical  habit  of  forcing  girls  into  marriage  before 
they  had  reached  the  age  of  puberty  and  its  wide  prevalence 
I  have  already  spoken  (293),  and  reference  will  be  made  to 
it  in  many  of  the  pages  following  this.  Here  I  may,  there- 
fore, confine  myself  to  a  few  details  relating  to  one  country, 
by  way  of  showing  vividly  what  a  deadly  obstacle  to  court- 
ship, free  choice,  love,  and  every  tender  and  merciful  feeling, 
this  cruel  custom  forms.  Among  all  classes  and  castes  of 
Hindoos  it  has  been  customary  from  time  immemorial  to 
unite  boys  of  eight,  seven,  even  six  years,  to  girls  still 
younger.  It  is  even  prescribed  by  the  laws  of  Manu  that  a 
man  of  twenty-four  should  marry  a  girl  of  eight.  Old  San- 
scrit verses  have  been  found  declaring  that  "  the  mother, 
father,  and  oldest  brother  of  a  girl  shall  all  be  damned  if 
they  allow  her  to  reach  maturity  without  being  married  ;  " 
and  the  girl  herself,  in  such  a  case,  is  cast  out  into  the  low- 
est class,  too  low  for  anyone  to  marry  her.1  In  some  cases 
marriage  means  merely  engagement,  the  bride  remaining  at 
home  with  her  parents,  who  do  not  part  with  her  till  some 
years  later.  Often,  however,  the  husband  takes  immediate 
possession  of  his  child- wife,  and  the  consequences  are  hor- 
rible. Of  205  cases  reported  in  a  Bengal  Medico-Legal 
Report,  5  ended  fatally,  38  were  crippled,  and  the  general 
effect  of  such  cruelty  is  pathetically  touched  on  by  Mme. 
Ryder,  who  found  it  impossible  to  describe  the  anguish  she 
felt  when  she  saw  these  half-developed  females,  with  their 
expression  of  hopeless  suffering,  their  skeleton  arms  and  legs, 
marching  behind  their  husbands  at  the  prescribed  distance, 
with  never  a  smile  on  their  faces. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  seek  a  partial  excuse  for  this  in- 
humanity in  the  early  maturing  effects  of  a  warm  climate. 
Mme.  Ryder  expressly  states  that  a  Hindoo  girl  of  ten, 
instead  of  seeming  older  than  a  European  girl  of  that  age, 
resembles  our  children  at  five  or  six  years. 

1  Cf.  Ploss-Bartels,  I.,  471-87,  where  this  topic  of  infant  marriage  is  treated 
with  truly  German  thoroughness  and  erudition. 


PREVENTION   OF   FREE    CHOICE  335 


IX.     PREVENTION   OF   FREE   CHOICE 

One  of  the  unfortunate  consequences  of  Darwin's  theory  of 
sexual  selection  was  that  it  made  him  assume  that  "  in 
utterly  barbarous  tribes  the  women  have  more  power  in  choos- 
ing, rejecting,  and  tempting  their  lovers,  or  of  afterward  ex- 
changing their  husbands  than  might  have  been  expected.  As 
this  is  a  point  of  importance,"  he  adds,  "  I  will  give  in  de- 
tail such  evidence  as  I  have  been  able  to  collect ;  "  which  he 
proceeds  to  do.  This  "evidence  in  detail"  consists  of  three 
cases  in  Africa,  five  among  American  Indians,  and  a  •  few 
others  among  Fijians,  Kalmucks,  Malayans,  and  the  Korarks 
of  Northeastern  Asia.  Having  referred  to  these  twelve 
cases,  he  proceeds  with  his  argument,  utterly  ignoring  the 
twelve  hundred  facts  that  oppose  his  assumption — a  proceed- 
ing so  unlike  his  usual  candid  habit  of  stating  the  difficulties 
confronting  him,  that  this  circumstance  alone  indicates  how 
shaky  he  felt  in  regard  to  this  point.  Moreover,  even  the  few 
instances  he  cites  fail  to  bear  out  his  doctrine.  It  is  incom- 
prehensible to  me  how  he  could  claim  the  Kaffirs  for  his  side. 
Though  these  Africans  "buy  their  wives,  and  girls  are  se- 
verely beaten  by  their  fathers  if  they  will  not  accept  a  chosen 
husband,  it  is  nevertheless  manifest,"  Darwin  writes,  "from 
many  facts  given  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Shooter,  that  they  have 
considerable  power  of  choice.  Thus,  very  ugly,  though  rich 
men,  have  been  known  to  fail  in  getting  wives."  What 
Shooter  really  does  (50)  is  to  relate  the  case  of  a  man  so  ill- 
favored  that  he  had  never  been  able  to  get  a  wife  till  he 
offered  a  big  sum  to  a  chief  for  one  of  his  wards.  She  re- 
fused to  go,  but  "  her  arms  were  bound  and  she  was  delivered 
like  a  captive.  Later  she  escaped  and  claimed  the  protection 
of  a  rival  chief." 

In  other  words,  this  man  did  not  fail  to  get  a  wife,  and 
the  girl  had  no  choice.  Darwin  ignores  the  rest  of  Shooter's 
narrative  (55-58),  which  shows  that  while  perhaps  as  a  rule 
moral  persuasion  is  first  tried  before  physical  violence  is  used, 
the  girl  in  any  case  is  obliged  to  take  the  man  chosen  for  her. 
The  man  is  highly  praised  in  her  presence,  and  if  she  still 


336  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

remains  obstinate  she  has  to  "  encounter  the  wrath  of  her 
enraged  father  .  .  .  the  furious  parent  will  hear  noth- 
ing— go  with  her  husband  she  must — if  she  return  she  shall 
be  slain."  Even  if  she  elopes  with  another  man  she  "may 
be  forcibly  brought  back  and  sent  to  the  one  chosen  by  her 
father,"  and  only  by  the  utmost  perseverance  can  she  escape 
his  tyranny.  Leslie  (whom  Darwin  cites)  is  therefore  wrong 
when  he  says  "  it  is  a  mistake  to  imagine  that  a  girl  is  sold 
by  her  father  in  the  same  manner,  and  with  the  same  author- 
ity, with  which  he  would  dispose  of  a  cow."  Those  who 
knew  the  Kaffirs  most  intimately  agree  with  Shooter  ;  the 
Rev.  W.  0.  Holden,  e.g.,  who  writes  in  his  elaborate  work, 
TJie  Past  and  Future  of  the  Kaffir  Races  (189-211)  that  "it 
is  common  for  the  youngest,  the  healthiest,  .  .  .  the 
handsomest  girls  to  be  sold  to  old  men  who  perhaps  have  al- 
ready half-a-dozen  concubines,"  and  whom  the  work  of  these 
wives  has  made  rich  enough  to  buy  another.  A  girl  is 
in  many  instances  "  compelled  by  torture  to  accept  the  man 
she  hates.  The  whole  is  as  purely  a  business  transaction  as 
the  bartering  of  an  ox  or  buying  a  horse."  From  Dugmore's 
Laws  and  Customs  he  cites  the  following  :  "  It  sometimes 
occurs  that  the  entreaties  of  the  daughter  prevail  over  the 
avarice  of  the  father  ;  but  such  cases,  the  Kaffirs  admit,  are 
rare  .  .  .  the  highest  bidder  usually  gains  the  prize." 
Holden  adds  that  when  a  girl  is  obstreperous  "  they  seize  her 
by  main  strength,  and  drag  her  on  the  ground,  as  I  have  re- 
peatedly seen  ; "  and  in  his  chapter  on  polygamy  he  gives  the 
most  harrowing  details  of  the  various  cruelties  practised  on 
the  poor  girls  who  do  not  wish  to  be  sold  like  cows. 

That  Kaffir  girls  "have  been  known  to  propose  to  a  man," 
as  Darwin  says,  does  not  indicate  that  they  have  a  choice, 
any  more  than  the  fact  that  they  "not  rarely  run  away  with  a 
favored  lover."  They  might  propose  to  a  hundred  men  and 
not  have  their  choice  ;  and  as  for  the  elopement,  that  in  itself 
shows  they  have  no  liberty  of  choice  ;  for  if  they  had  they 
would  not  be  obliged  to  run  away.  Finally,  how  could  Darwin 
reconcile  his  attitude  with  the  remark  of  C.  Hamilton,  cited 
by  himself,  that  with  the  Kaffirs  "  the  chiefs  generally  have 


PREVENTION   OF   FREE    CHOICE  33? 

the  pick  of  the  women  for  many  miles  round,  and  are  most 
persevering  in  establishing  or  confirming  their  privilege"  ? 

I  have  discussed  this  case  "  in  detail"  in  order  to  show  to 
what  desperate  straits  a  hopeless  theory  may  reduce  a  great 
thinker.  To  suppose  that  in  this  "utterly  barbarous  tribe" 
the  looks  of  the  race  can  be  gradually  improved  by  the  wom- 
en accepting  only  those  males  who  "excite  or  charm  them 
most"  is  simply  grotesque.  Nor  is  Darwin  much  happier 
with  his  other  cases.  When  he  wrote  that  "Among  the  de- 
graded Bushmen  of  Africa"  (citing  Burchell)  "  '  when  a  girl 
has  grown  up  to  womanhood  without  having  been  betrothed, 
which,  however,  does  not  often  happen,  her  lover  must  gain 
her  approbation  as  well  as  that  of  her  parents '  " — the  words  I 
have  italized  ought  to  have  shown  him  that  this  testimony  was 
not  for  but  against  his  theory.  Burchell  himself  tells  us  that 
Bushman  girls  "are  most  commonly  betrothed"  when  about 
seven  years  old,  and  become  mothers  at  twelve,  or  even  at  ten. 
To  speak  of  choice  in  such  cases,  in  any  rational  sense  of  the 
word,  would  be  farcical  even  if  the  girls  were  free  to  do  us 
they  please,  which  they  are  not.  With  regard  to  the  Fue- 
gians,  Darwin  cites  King  and  Fitzroy  to  the  effect  that  the 
Indian  obtains  the  consent  of  the  parents  by  doing  them 
some  service,  and  then  attempts  to  carry  off  the  girl ;  "  but 
if  she  is  unwilling,  she  hides  herself  in  the  woods  until  her 
admirer  is  heartily  tired  of  looking  for  her  and  gives  up  his 
pursuit ;  hut  this  seldom  happens."  If  this  passage  means 
anything,  it  means  that  it  is  customary  for  the  parents  to  de- 
cide upon  who  is  to  marry  their  daughters,  and  that,  though 
she  may  frustrate  the  plan,  "  this  seldom  happens."  Darwin 
further  informs  us  that  "  Hearne  describes  how  a  woman  in 
one  of  the  tribes  of  Arctic  America  repeatedly  ran  away  from 
her  husband  and  joined  her  lover."  How  much  this  single 
instance  proves  in  regard  to  woman's  liberty  of  choice  or  power 
to  aid  sexual  selection,  may  be  inferred  from  the  statement 
by  the  same  "excellent  observer"  of  Indian  traits  (as  Darwin 
himself  calls  him)  that  "it  has  ever  been  the  custom  among 
those  people  to  wrestle  for  any  woman  to  whom  they  are  at- 
tached ;  and,  of  course,  the  strongest  party  always  carries  off 


338  OBSTACLES    TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

the  prize" — an  assertion  borne  out  by  Kichardson  (II.,  24) 
and  others.  But  if  the  strongest  man  "always  carries  off 
the  prize/'  where  does  woman 's  choice  come  in  ?  Hearne 
adds  that  "this  custom  prevails  throughout  all  their  tribes" 
(104).  And  while  the  other  Indian  instances  referred  to  by 
Darwin  indicate  that  in  case  of  decided  aversion  a  girl  is  not 
absolutely  compelled,  as  among  the  Kaffirs,  to  marry  the  man 
selected  for  her,  the  custom  nevertheless  is  for  the  parents 
to  make  the  choice,  as  among  most  Indians,  North  and 
South. 

Whereas  Darwin's  claim  that  primitive  women  have  "  more 
power"  to  decide  their  fate  as  regards  marriage  "  than  might 
have  been  expected,"  is  comparatively  modest,  Westermarck 
goes  so  far  as  to  declare  that  these  women  "  are  not,  as  a 
rule,  married  without  having  any  voice  of  their  own  in 
the  matter."  He  feels  compelled  to  this  course  because  he 
realizes  that  his  theory  that  savages  originally  ornamented 
themselves  in  order  to  make  themselves  attractive  to  the 
opposite  sex  "  presupposes  of  course  that  savage  girls  enjoy 
great  liberty  in  the  choice  of  a  mate."  In  the  compilation 
of  his  evidence,  unfortunately,  Westermarck  is  even  less 
critical  and  reliable  than  Darwin.  In  reference  to  the  Bush- 
men, he  follows  Darwin's  example  in  citing  Burchell,  but 
leaves  out  the  words  "  which,  however,  does  not  often  hap- 
pen," which  show  that  liberty  of  choice  on  the  woman's  part  is 
not  the  rule  but  a  rare  exception.1  He  also  claims  the  Kaffirs, 
though,  as  I  have  just  shown,  such  a  claim  is  preposterous. 
To  the  evidence  already  cited  on  my  side  I  may  add  Shooter's 
remarks  (55),  that  if  there  are  several  lovers  the  girl  is  asked 
to  decide  for  herself.  "  This,  however,  is  merely  formal," 
for  if  she  chooses  one  who  is  poor  the  father  recommends  to 

1  To  demonstrate  the  recklessness  (to  use  a  mild  word)  of  Darwin  and  Wester- 
marck in  this  matter  I  will  quote  the  exact  words  of  Burchell  in  the  passage 
referred  to  (II. ,  58-59)  :  "These  men  generally  take  a  second  wife  as  soon  as 
the  first  becomes  somewhat  advanced  in  years."  "Most  commonly"  the  girls 
are  betrothed  when  about  seven  years  old,  and  in  two  or  three  years  the  girl 
is  given  to  the  man.  "These  bargains  are  made  with  her  parents  only,  and 
without  ever  consulting  the  wishes  (even  if  she  had  any)  of  the  daughter.  When 
it  happens,  which  is  not  often  the  case,  that  a  girl  has  grown  up  to  womanhood 
without  having  been  betrothed,  her  lover  must  gain  her  approbation  as  well  as 
that  of  her  parents" 


PREVENTION   OF   FREE    CHOICE  339 

her  the  one  of  whom  he  calculated  to  get  the  most  cattle, 
and  that  settles  the  matter.  Not  even  the  widows  are  allowed 
the  liberty  of  choice,  for,  as  Shooter  further  informs  us  (80), 
"  when  a  man  dies  those  wives  who  have  not  left  the  kraal 
remain  with  the  eldest  son.  If  they  wish  to  marry  again, 
they  must  go  to  one  of  their  late  husband's  brothers." 
Among  the  African  women  "  who  have  no  difficulty  in  getting 
the  husbands  whom  they  may  desire,"  Westermarck  mentions 
the  Ashantees,  on  the  authority  of  Beecham  (125).  On  con- 
sulting that  page  of  Beecham  I  find  that  he  does  indeed  de- 
clare that  "no  Ashantee  compels  his  daughter  to  become  the 
wife  of  one  she  dislikes  ; "  but  this  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  saying  that  she  can  choose  the  man  she  may  desire. 
"In  the  affair  of  courtship,"  writes  Beecham,  "the  wishes 
of  the  female  are  but  little  consulted  ;  the  business  being 
chiefly  settled  between  the  suitor  and  her  parents."  And 
in  the  same  page  he  adds  that  "it  is  not  infrequently  the 
case  that  infants  are  married  to  each  other  .  .  .  and 
infants  are  also  frequently  wedded  to  adults,  and  even  to 
elderly  men,"  while  it  is  also  customary  "  to  contract  for  a 
child  before  it  is  born."  The  same  destructive  criticism 
might  be  applied  to  other  negroes  of  Western  Africa  whom 
both  Darwin  and  Westermarck  claim  on  the  very  dubious 
evidence  of  Reade.1 

Among  other  peoples  to  whom  Westermarck  looks  for  sup- 
port of  his  argument  are  the  Fijians,  Tongans,  and  natives  of 
New  Britain,  Java,  and  Sumatra.  He  claims  the  Fijians  on 
the  peculiar  ground  (the  italics  are  mine)  that  among  them 
"  forced  marriages  are  comparatively  rare  among  the  higher 

1  Darwin  was  evidently  puzzled  by  the  queer  nature  of  Reade's  evidence  in 
other  matters  (D.  M.,  Chap.  XIX. )  ;  yet  he  naive'y  relies  on  him  as  an  authority. 
Reade  told  him  that  the  ideas  of  negroes  on  beauty  are  "on  the  whole,  the 
same  as  ours."  Yet  in  several  other  pages  of  Darwin  we  see  it  noted  that  ac- 
cording to  Reade,  the  negroes  have  a  horror  of  a  white  skin  and  admire  a  skin 
in  proportion  to  its  blackness;  that  "  they  look  on  blue  eyes  with  aversion, 
and  they  think  our  noses  too  long  and  our  lips  too  thin."  "  He  does  not  think 
it  probable,"  Darwin  adds,  "  that  negroes  would  ever  prefer  the  most  beautiful 
European  woman,  on  the  mere  ground  of  physical  admiration,  to  a  good-looking 
negress. "  How  extraordinarily  like  our  taste!  If  a  man  had  talked  to  Darwin 
about  corals  or  angleworms  as  foolishly  and  inconsistently  as  Reade  did  about 
negroes,  he  would  have  ignored  him.  But  in  matters  relating  to  beauty  or  love 
all  rubbish  is  accepted,  and  every  globe-trotter  and  amateur  explorer  who 
wields  a  pen  is  treated  as  an  authority. 


340  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

classes."  That  may  be  ;  but  are  not  the  higher  classes  a 
small  minority  ?  And  do  not  all  classes  indulge  in  the  hab- 
its of  infant  betrothal  and  of  appropriating  women  by  vio- 
lence without  consulting  their  wishes  ?  Regarding  the  Ton- 
gans,  Westermarck  cites  the  supposition  of  Mariner  that 
perhaps  two-thirds  of  the  girls  had  married  with  their  own 
free  consent ;  which  does  not  agree  with  the  observations  of 
Vason  (144),  who  spent  four  years  among  them  :  "  As  the 
choice  of  a  husband  is  not  in  the  power  of  the  daughters  but 
he  is  provided  by  the  discretion  of  the  parents,  an  instance 
of  refusal  on  the  part  of  the  daughter  is  unknown  in  Tonga." 
He  adds  that  this  is  not  deemed  a  hardship  there,  where  di- 
vorce and  unchastity  are  so  general. 

"  In  the  New  Britain  Group,  according  to  Mr.  Eomilly, 
after  the  man  has  worked  for  years  to  pay  for  his  wife,  and 
is  finally  in  a  position  to  take  her  to  his  house,  she  may  re- 
fuse to  go,  and  he  cannot  claim  back  from  the  parents  the 
large  sums  he  has  paid  them  in  yams,  cocoa-nuts,  and  sugar- 
canes."  This  Westermarck  guilelessly  accepts  as  proof  of  the 
liberty  of  choice  on  the  girlV  part,  missing  the  very  philos- 
ophy of  the  whole  matter.  Why  are  girls  not  allowed  in  so 
many  cases  to  choose  their  own  husbands  ?  Because  their 
selfish  parents  want  to  benefit  by  selling  them  to  the  highest 
bidder.  In  the  above  case,  on  the  contrary,  as  the  italics 
show,  the  selfish  parents  benefit  by  making  the  girl  refuse  to 
go  with  that  man,  keeping  her  as  a  bait  for  another  profit- 
able suitor.  In  all  probability  she  refuses  to  go  with  him  at 
the  positive  command  of  her  parents.  What  the  real  state 
of  affairs  is  on  the  New  Britain  Group  we  may  gather  from 
the  revelations  given  in  an  article  on  the  marriage  customs 
of  the  natives  by  the  Eev.  B.  Danks  in  the  Journal  of  the 
Anthropological  Institute  (1888,  290-93)  :  In  New  Britain, 
he  says,  "  the  marriage  tie  has  much  the  appearance  of 
a  money  tie."  There  are  instances  of  sham  capture,  when 
there  is  much  laughter  and  fun  ;  ' '  but  in  many  cases  which 
came  under  my  notice  it  was  not  a  matter  of  form  but  pain- 
ful earnestness."  "  It  often  happens  that  the  young  woman 
has  a  liking  for  another  and  none  for  the  man  who  has  pur- 


PREVENTION    OF   FREE    CHOICE  341 

chased  her.  She  may  refuse  to  go  to  him.  In  that  case  her 
friends  consider  themselves  disgraced  by  her  conduct.  She 
ought,  according  to  their  notions,  to  fall  in  with  their  ar- 
rangements with  thankfulness  and  gladness  of  heart  !  They 
drag  her  along,  beat  her,  kick  and  abuse  her,  and  it  has 
been  my  misfortune  to  see  girls  dragged  past  my  house, 
struggling  in  vain  to  escape  from  their  fate.  Sometimes 
they  have  broken  loose  and  then  ran  for  the  only  place  of 
refuge  in  all  the  country,  the  mission-house.  I  could  render 
them  no  assistance  until  they  had  bounded  up  the  steps  of 
my  veranda  into  our  bedroom  and  hidden  themselves  under 
the  bed,  trembling  for  their  lives.  It  has  been  my  privilege 
and  duty  to  stand  between  the  infuriated  brother  or  father, 
who  has  followed  close  upon  the  poor  girl,  spear  in  hand, 
vowing  to  put  her  to  death  for  the  disgrace  she  has  brought 
upon  them/'  "  Liberty  of  choice/'  indeed  ! 

"  In  some  parts  of  Java,  much  deference  is  paid  to  the 
bride's  inclinations,"  writes  Westermarck.  But  Earl  de- 
clares (58)  that  among  the  Javanese  "  courtship  is  carried 
on  entirely  through  the  medium  of  the  parents  of  the  young 
people,  and  any  interference  on  the  part  of  the  bride  would 
be  considered  highly  indecorous."  And  Raffles  writes  (I., 
Ch.  VII.)  that  in  Java  "marriages  are  invariably  contracted, 
not  by  the  parties  themselves,  but  by  their  parents  or  rela- 
tions on  their  behalf."  Betrothals  of  children,  too,  are  cus- 
tomary. Regarding  the  Sumatrans,  Westermarck  cites  Mars- 
den  to  the  effect  that  among  the  Rejang  a  man  may  run 
away  with  a  virgin  without  violating  the  laws,  provided  he 
pays  her  parents  for  her  afterward — which  tells  us  little  about 
the  girl's  choice.  But  why  does  he  ignore  Marsden's  full 
account,  a  few  pages  farther  on,  of  Sumatran  marriages  in 
general  ?  There  are  four  kinds,  one  of  which,  he  says,  is  a 
regular  treaty  between  the  parties  on  a  footing  of  equality  ; 
this  is  called  marriage  by  semanclo.  In  the  jujur  a  sum  of 
money  is  given  by  one  man  to  another  "as  a  consideration 
for  the  person  of  his  daughter,  whose  situation  in  thjs  case 
differs  not  much  from  that  of  a  slave  to  the  man  she  marries, 
and  to  his  family."  In  other  cases  one  virgin  is  given  in  ex- 


342  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

change  for  another,  and  in  the  marriage  by  ambel  anak  the 
father  of  a  young  man  chooses  a  wife  for  him.  Finally  he 
shows  that  the  customs  of  Sumatrans  do  not  favor  courtship, 
the  young  men  and  women  being  kept  carefully  apart. 

At  first  sight  Westermarck's  chapter  on  the  Liberty  of 
Choice  seems  rather  imposing,  as  it  consists  of  twenty-seven 
pages,  while  Darwin  devoted  only  two  to  the  subject.  In 
reality,  however,  Westermarck  has  filled  only  eight  pages 
with  what  he  considers  proofs  of  his  theory,  and  after  scour- 
ing the  whole  world  he  has  not  succeeded  in  bringing  to- 
gether thirty  cases  which  stand  the  test  of  critical  examina- 
tion. I  grant  him,  though  in  several  instances  with  suspicions, 
some  American  Indian  tribes,  natives  of  Arorae,  of  the  So- 
ciety Islands,  Micronesians  in  general  (?),  Dyaks,  Minahas- 
sers  of  Celebes,  Burmese,  Shans,  Chittagong  Hill  tribes,  and 
a  few  other  wild  tribes  of  India,  possibly  some  aboriginal 
Chinese  tribes,  Ainos,  Kamchadales,  Jakuts,  Ossetes,  Kal- 
mucks, Aenezes,  Touaregs,  Shulis,  Madis,  the  ancient  Cathaei 
and  Lydians.  My  reasons  for  rejecting  his  other  instances 
have  already  been  given  in  part,  and  most  of  the  other  cases 
will  be  disposed  of  in  the  pages  relating  to  Australians,  New 
Zealanders,  American  Indians,  Hindoos,  and  Wild  Tribes  of 
India.  In  the  chapter  on  Australia,  after  commenting  on 
Westermarck's  preposterous  attempt  to  include  that  race  in 
his  list  in  the  face  of  all  the  authorities,  I  shall  explain  also 
why  it  is  not  likely  that,  as  he  maintains,  still  more  prim- 
itive races  allowed  their  women  greater  freedom  of  choice 
than  modern  savages  enjoy  in  his  opinion. 

To  become  convinced  that  the  women  of  the  lower  races 
do  not  "  as  a  rule  "  enjoy  the  liberty  of  choice,  we  need  only 
contrast  the  meagre  results  obtained  by  Darwin  and  Wester- 
marck with  the  vast  number  of  races  and  tribes  whose  cus- 
toms indicate  that  women  are  habitually  given  in  marriage 
without  being  consulted  as  to  their  wishes.  Among  these 
customs  are  infant  marriage,  infant  betrothal,  capture, 
purchase,  marrying  whole  families  of  sisters,  and  the  levirate. 
It  is  true  that  some  of  these  customs  do  not  affect  all  mem- 
bers of  the  tribes  involved,  but  the  very  fact  of  their  prev- 


PREVENTION   OF   FREE    CHOICE  343 

alence  shows  that  the  idea  of  consulting  a  woman's  prefer- 
ence does  not  enter  into  the  heads  of  the  men,  barring  a  few 
cases,  where  a  young  woman  is  so  obstreperous  that  she  may 
at  any  rate  succeed  in  escaping  a  hated  suitor,  though  even 
this  (which  is  far  from  implying  liberty  of  choice)  is  altogeth- 
er exceptional.  We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  deceived 
by  appearances,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Moors  of  Senegambiu, 
concerning  whom  Letourneau  says  (138)  that  a  daughter  has 
the  right  to  refuse  the  husband  selected  for  her,  on  condition 
of  remaining  unmarried  ;  if  she  marries  another,  she  becomes 
the  slave  of  the  man  first  selected  for  her.  Of  the  Christian 
Abyssinians,  Combes  and  Tamisiersay  (II.,  106)  that  the  girls 
are  never  "seriously"  consulted;  and  "at  Sackatou  a  girl 
is  usually  consulted  by  her  parents,  but  only  as  a  matter  of 
form  ;  she  never  refuses."  (Letourneau,  139.)  The  same 
may  be  said  of  China  and  Japan,  where  the  sacred  duty  of 
filial  obedience  is  so  ingrained  in  a  girl's  soul  that  she  would 
never  dream  of  opposing  her  parents'  wishes. 

Of  the  horrible  custom  of  marrying  helpless  girls  before 
they  are  mature  in  body  or  mind — often,  indeed,  before  they 
have  reached  the  age  of  puberty — I  have  already  spoken,  in- 
stancing some  Borneans,  Javanese,  Egyptians,  American 
Indians,  Australians,  Hottentots,  natives  of  Old  Calabar, 
Hindoos  ;  to  which  may  be  added  some  Arabs  and  Persians, 
Syrians,  Kurds,  Turks,  natives  of  Celebes,  Madagascar,  Bechu- 
anas,  Basutos,  and  many  other  Africans,  etc.  As  for  those 
who  practise  infant  betrothal,  Westermarck's  own  list  includes 
Eskimos,  Chippewayans,  Botocudos,  Patagonians,  Shoshones, 
Arawaks,  Macusis,  Iroquois  ;  Gold  Coast  negroes,  Bushmen, 
Marutse,  Bechuanas,  Ashantees,  Australians  ;  tribes  of  New 
Guinea,  New  Zealand,  Tonga,  Tahiti,  and  many  other  islands 
of  the  South  Sea  ;  some  tribes  of  the  Malay  Archipelago  ; 
tribes  of  British  India  ;  all  peoples  of  the  Turkish  stock  ; 
Samoyedes  and  Tuski  ;  Jews  of  Western  Eussia. 

As  regards  capture,  good  authorities  now  hold  that  it  was 
not  a  universal  practice  in  all  parts  of  the  world  ;  yet  it  pre- 
vailed very  widely — for  instance,  among  Aleutian  Islanders, 
Alits,  Bonaks,  Macas  Indians  of  Ecuador,  all  Carib  tribes, 


344  OBSTACLES    TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

some  Brazilians,  Mosquito  Indians,  Fuegians ;  Bushmen, 
Bechuanas,  Wakamba,  and  other  Africans ;  Australians, 
Tasmanians,  Maoris,  Fijians,  natives  of  Samoa,  Tukopia, 
New  Guinea,  Indian  Archipelago;  wild  tribes  of  India; 
Arabs,  Tartars,  and  other  Central  Asians ;  some  Russians, 
Laplanders,  Esthonians,  Finns,  Greeks,  Romans,  Teutons, 
Scandinavians,  Slavonians,  etc.  "  The  list,"  says  Wester- 
inarck  (387),  "  might  easily  be  enlarged."  As  for  the  list 
of  peoples  among  whom  brides  were  sold — usually  to  the 
highest  bidder  and  without  reference  to  feminine  choic.e — 
that  would  be  much  larger  still.  Eight  pages  are  devoted  to 
it  and  two  only  to  the  exceptions,  by  Westermarck  himself, 
who  concludes  (399)  that  "  Purchase  of  wives  may,  with  even 
more  reason  than  marriage  by  capture,  be  said  to  form  a  gen- 
eral stage  in  the  social  history  of  mankind."  How  nearly 
universal  the  practice  is,  or  has  been,  may  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  Sutherland  (I.,  208),  after  examining  sixty-one 
negro  races,  found  fifty-seven  recorded  as  purchasing  their 
wives. 

Widely  prevalent  also  was  the  custom  of  allowing  a  man 
who  had  married  a  girl  to  claim  all  her  sisters  as  soon  as  they 
reached  a  marriageable  age.  Whatever  their  own  preferences 
might  be,  they  had  no  choice.  Among  the  Indian  tribes 
alone,  Morgan  mentions  forty  who  indulged  in  this  custom. 
As  for  the  levirate,  that  is  another  very  wide-spread  custom 
which  shows  an  utter  disregard  of  woman's  preference  and 
choice.  It  might  be  supposed  that  widows,  at  any  rate,  ought 
always  to  be  allowed,  in  case  they  wished  to  marry  again,  to 
follow  their  own  choice.  But  they  are,  like  the  daughters, 
regarded  as  personal  property,  and  are  inherited  by  their  late 
husband's  brother  or  some  other  male  relative,  who  marries 
them  himself  or  disposes  of  them  as  he  pleases.  Whether  the 
acceptance  of  a  brother's  widow  or  widows  is  a  right  or  a  duty 
(prescribed  by  the  desire  for  sons  and  ancestor-worship)  is  im- 
material for  our  purpose  ;  for  in  either  case  the  widow  must 
go  as  custom  commands,  and  has  no  liberty  of  choice.  The 
levirate  prevails,  or  has  prevailed,  among  a  great  number 
of  races,  from  the  lowest  to  those  considerably  advanced. 


PREVENTION   OF   FREE    CHOICE  345 

The  list  includes  Australians,  many  Indians,  from  the  low 
Brazilians  to  the  advanced  Iroquois,  Aleuts,  Eskimos,  Fijians, 
Sarnoans,  Caroline  Islanders,  natives  of  New  Caledonia,  New 
Guinea,  New  Britain,  New  Hebrides,  the  Malay  Archipelago, 
Wild  tribes  of  India,  Kamchadales,  Ostiaks,  Kirghiz,  Mon- 
golians in  general,  Arabs,  Egyptians,  Hebrews,  natives  of 
Madagascar,  many  Kaffir  tribes,  negroes  of  the  Gold  Coast, 
Senegambians,  Bechuanas,  and  a  great  many  other  Africans, 
etc. 

Twelve  pages  of  Westermarck's  chapter  on  the  Liberty 
of  Choice  are  devoted  to  peoples  among  whom  not  even  a 
son  is,  or  was,  allowed  to  marry  without  the  father's  consent. 
The  list  includes  Mexicans,  Guatemalans,  Nicaraguans,  Chi- 
nese, Japanese,  Hebrews,  Egyptians,  Romans,  Greeks,  Hin- 
doos, Germans,  Celts,  Russians,  etc.  In  all  these  cases  the 
daughters,  of  course,  enjoyed  still  less  liberty  of  disposing  of 
their  hand.  In  short,  the  argument  against  Darwin  and  West- 
ermarck  is  simply  overwhelming — all  the  more  when  we  look 
at  the  numbers  of  the  races  who  do  not  permit  women  their 
choice— the  400,000,000  Chinese,  300,000,000  Hindoos,  the 
Mohammedan  millions,  the  whole  continent  of  Australia, 
nearly  all  of  aboriginal  America  and  Africa,  etc. 

A  drowning  man  clings  to  a  straw.  "  In  Indian  and  Scan- 
dinavian tales,"  Westermarck  informs  us,  "  virgins  are  rep- 
resented as  having  the  power  to  dispose  of  themselves  freely. 
Thus  it  was  agreed  that  Skade  should  choose  for  herself  a 
husband  among  the  Asas,  but  she  was  to  make  her  choice  by 
the  feet,  the  only  part  of  their  persons  she  was  allowed  to  see." 
Obviously  the  author  of  this  tale  from  the  Younger  Edda  had 
more  sense  of  humor  than  some  modern  anthropologists  have. 
No  less  topsy-turvy  is  the  Hindoo  Svayamvara  or  "  Maiden's 
Choice,"  to  which  Westermarck  alludes  (162).  This  is  an  in- 
cident often  referred  to  in  epics  and  dramas.  "It  was  a  cus- 
tom in  royal  circles,"  writes  Samuelson,  "  when  a  princess 
became  marriageable,  for  a  tournament  to  be  held,  and  the 
victor  2vas  chosen  by  the  princess  as  her  husband."  If  the 
sarcasm  of  the  expression  "  Maiden's  Choice"  is  unconscious, 
it  is  all  the  more  amusing.  How  far  Hindoo  women  of  all 


346  OBSTACLES   TO   ROMANTIC   LOVE 

classes  were  and  are  from  enjoying  the  liberty  of  choice,  we 
shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  India. 


X.      SEPAKATION    OF   THE   SEXES 

I  have  given  so  much  space  to  the  question  of  choice  be- 
cause it  is  one  of  exceptional  importance.  Where  there  is  no 
choice  there  can  be  no  real  courtship,  and  where  there  is  no 
courtship  there  is  no  opportunity  for  the  development  of 
those  imaginative  and  sentimental  traits  which  constitute  the 
essence  of  romantic  love.  It  by  no  means  follows,  however, 
that  where  choice  is  permitted  to  girls,  as  with  the  Dyaks, 
real  love  follows  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  for  it  may  be  pre- 
vented, as  it  is  in  the  case  of  these  Dyaks,  by  their  sensuality, 
coarseness,  and  general  emotional  shallowness  and  sexual 
frivolity.  The  prevention  of  choice  is  only  one  of  the  obsta- 
cles to  love,  but  it  is  one  of  the  most  formidable,  because  it 
has  acted  at  all  times  and  among  races  of  all  degrees  of  bar- 
barism or  civilization  up  to  modern  Europe  of  two  or  three 
centuries  ago.  And  to  the  frustration  and  free  choice  was 
added  another  obstacle — the  separation  of  the  sexes.  Some 
Indians  and  even  Australians  tried  to  keep  the  sexes  apart, 
though  usually  without  much  success.  In  their  cause  no 
harm  was  done  to  the  cause  of  love,  because  these  races  are 
constitutionally  incapable  of  romantic  love  ;  but  in  higher 
stages  of  civilization  the  strict  seclusion  of  the  women  was  a 
fatal  obstacle  to  love.  Wherever  separation  of  the  sexes  and 
chaperonage  prevails,  the  only  kind  of  amorous  infatuation 
possible,  as  a  rule,  is  sensual  passion,  fiery  but  transient. 
To  love  a  girl  sentimentally — that  is,  for  her  mental  beauty 
and  moral  refinement  as  well  as  her  bodily  charms — a  man 
must  get  acquainted  with  her,  be  allowed  to  meet  her  fre- 
quently. This  was  not  possible  until  within  a  few  genera- 
tions. The  separation  of  the  sexes,  by  preventing  all  possi- 
bility of  refined  and  legitimate  courtship,  favored  illicit 
amours  on  one  side,  loveless  marriages  on  the  other,  thus 
proving  one  of  the  most  formidable  obstacles  to  love.  "  It  is 
not  enough  to  give  time  for  mutual  knowledge  and  affection 


SEXUAL   TABOOS  347 

after  marriage,"  wrote  the  late  Henry  Drummond.  "  Nature 
must  deepen  the  result  by  extending  it  to  the  time  before 
marriage.  .  .  .  Courtship,  with  its  vivid  perceptions  and 
quickened  emotions,  is  a  great  opportunity  for  evolution  ;  and 
to  institute  and  lengthen  reasonably  a  period  so  rich  in  im- 
pression is  one  of  its  latest  and  brightest  efforts." 


XI.    SEXUAL   TABOOS 

If  a  law  were  passed  compelling  every  man  living  in 
Rochester,  N.  Y.,  who  wanted  a  wife  to  get  her  outside  of 
that  city,  in  Buffalo,  Syracuse,  Utica,  or  some  other  place,  it 
would  be  considered  an  outrageous  restriction  of  free  choice, 
calculated  to  diminish  greatly  the  chances  of  love-matches 
based  on  intimate  acquaintance.  If  such  a  law  had  existed 
for  generations  and  centuries,  sanctioned  by  religion  and  cus- 
tom and  so  strictly  enforced  that  violation  of  it  entailed  the 
danger  of  capital  punishment,  a  sentiment  would  have  grown 
up  in  course  of  time  making  the  inhabitants  of  Rochester 
look  upon  marriage  within  the  city  with  the  same  horror  as 
they  do  upon  incestuous  unions.  This  is  not  an  absurd  or 
fanciful  supposition.  Such  laws  and  customs  actually  did 
prevail  in  this  very  section  of  New  York  State.  The  Seneca 
tribe  of  the  Iroquois  Indians  was  divided  into  two  phratries, 
each  of  which  was  again  subdivided  into  four  clans,  named 
after  their  totems  or  animals ;  the  Bear,  Wolf,  Beaver,  and 
Turtle  clans  belonging  to  one  phratry,  while  the  other  in- 
cluded the  Deer,  Snipe,  Heron,  and  Hawk  clans.  Morgan's 
researches  show  that  originally  an  Indian  belonging  to  one 
phratry  could  marry  a  woman  belonging  to  the  other  only. 
Subsequently  the  line  was  drawn  less  strictly,  but  still  no  Ind- 
ian was  allowed  to  marry  a  squaw  of  his  own  clan,  though 
there  might  be  no  blood  relationship  between  them.  If  an 
Algonkin  married  a  girl  of  his  clan  he  committed  a  crime  for 
which  his  nearest  relatives  might  put  him  to  death.  This 
law  has  prevailed  widely  among  the  wild  races  in  various 
parts  of  the  globe.  McLennan,  who  first  called  attention  to 
its  prevalence  and  importance,  called  it  exogamy,  or  marrying- 


348  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

out.  What  led  to  this  custom  is  not  known  definitely  ;  nearly 
every  anthropologist  has  his  own  theory  on  the  subject.1 
Luckily  we  are  not  concerned  here  with  the  origin  and  causes 
of  exogamy,  but  only  with  the  fact  of  its  existence.  It  occurs 
not  only  among  barbarians  of  a  comparatively  high  type,  like 
the  North  American  Indians,  but  among  the  lowest  Austra- 
lian savages,  who  put  to  death  any  man  who  marries  or  as- 
saults a  woman  of  the  same  clan  as  his.  In  some  Polynesian 
islands,  among  the  wild  tribes  of  India  as  well  a~s  the  Hindoos, 
in  various  parts  of  Africa,  the  law  of  exogamy  prevails,  and 
wherever  it  exists  it  forms  a  serious  obstacle  to  free  choice 
— i.e.,  free  love,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  expression.  As 
Herbert  Spencer  remarks,  "  The  exogamous  custom  as  at  first 
established  [being  connected  with  capture]  implies  an  ex- 
tremely abject  condition  of  women  ;  a  brutal  treatment  of 
them  ;  an  entire  absence  of  the  higher  sentiments  that  ac- 
company the  relations  of  the  sexes. " 

AVhile  exogamy  thwarts  love  by  minimizing  the  chances  of 
intimate  acquaintance  and  genuine  courtship,  there  is  another 
form  of  sexual  taboo  which  conversely  and  designedly  frus- 
trates the  tendency  of  intimate  acquaintance  to  ripen  into 
passion  and  love.  Though  we  do  not  know  just  how  the 
horror  of  incest  arose,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  there  must 
be  a  natural  basis  for  so  strong  and  widely  prevalent  a  senti- 
ment. In  so  far  as  this  horror  of  incest  prevents  the  mar- 
riage of  near  relatives,  it  is  an  obstacle  to  love  that  must  be 
commended  as  doubtless  useful  to  the  race.  But  when  we 
find  that  in  China  there  are  only  530  surnames,  and  that  a 
man  who  marries  a  woman  of  the  same  surname  is  punished 
for  the  crime  of  "  incest "  ;  that  the  Church  under  Theodosius 
the  Great  forbade  the  union  of  relatives  to  the  seventh  degree ; 
that  in  many  countries  a  man  could  not  wed  a  relative  by 
marriage  ;  that  in  Rome  union  with  an  adopted  brother  or 
sister  was  as  rigidly  forbidden  as  with  a  real  sister  or  brother  ; 
— when  we  come  across  such  facts  we  see  that  artificial  and 
foolish  notions  regarding  incest  must  be  added  to  the  long 

1  See  McLennan's  Studies  in  Ancient  History,  first  and  second  series  :  Spen- 
cer's Principles  of  Sociology,  I.,  Part  3,  Chap.  4  ;  \Yesteimarck,  Chap.  XIV.,  etc. 


RACE   AVERSION  349 

list  of  agencies  that  have  retarded  the  growth  of  free  choice 
and  true  love.  And  it  should  be  noted  that  in  all  these  cases 
of  exogamy  and  taboos  of  artificial  incest,  the  man's  liberty 
of  choice  was  restricted  as  well  as  the  woman's.  Thus  our 
cumulative  evidence  against  the  Darwin- Westermarck  theory 
of  free  choice  is  constantly  gaining  in  weight. 

XII.    RACE   AVERSION 

Max  O'Rell  once  wrote  that  he  did  not  understand  how 
there  could  be  such  a  thing  as  mulattoes  in  the  world.  It  is 
certainly  safe  to  say  that  there  are  none  such  as  a  consequence 
of  love.  The  features,  color,  odor,  tastes,  and  habits  of  one 
race  have  ever  aroused  the  antagonism  of  other  races  and  pre- 
vented the  growth  of  that  sympathy  which  is  essential  to 
love.  In  a  man  strong  passion  may  overcome  the  aversion 
to  a  more  or  less  enduring  union  with  a  woman  of  a  lower 
race,  just  as  extreme  hunger  may  urge  him  to  eat  what  his 
palate  would  normally  reject ;  but  women  seem  to  be  proof 
against  this  temptation  to  stoop  :  in  mixed  marriages  it  is 
nearly  always  the  man  who  belongs  to  the  superior  race.  At 
first  thought  it  might  seem  as  if  this  racial  aversion  could  not 
do  much  to  retard  the  growth  of  free  choice  and  love,  since  in 
early  times,  when  facilities  for  travel  were  poor,  the  races 
could  not  mix  anyway  as  they  do  now.  But  this  would  be  a 
great  error.  Migrations,  wars,  slave-making  and  plunder- 
ing expeditions  have  at  all  times  commingled  the  peoples 
of  the  earth,  yet  nothing  is  more  remarkable  than  the  stub- 
born tenacity  of  racial  prejudices. 

"  Count  de  Gobineau  remarks  that  not  even  a  common  re- 
ligion and  country  can  extinguish  the  hereditary  aversion  of 
the  Arab  to  the  Turk,  of  the  Kurd  to  the  Nestorian  of  Syria, 
of  the  Magyar  to  the  Slav.  Indeed,  so  strong,  among  the 
Arabs,  is  the  instinct  of  ethnical  isolation  that,  as  a  traveller 
relates,  at  Djidda,  where  sexual  morality  is  held  in  little  re- 
spect, a  Bedouin  woman  may  yield  herself  for  money  to  a 
Turk  or  European,  but  would  think  herself  forever  dishon- 
ored if  she  were  joined  to  him  in  lawful  wedlock/' 1 

1  Westermarck,  304-60,  where  many  other  striking  cases  of  racial  prejudice 
are  given. 


350  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

We  might  suppose  that  the  coarser  races  would  be  less  cap- 
able of  such  aversions  than  the  half-civilized,  but  the  cortnary 
is  true.  In  Australia  nearly  every  tribe  is  the  deadly  enemy 
of  every  other  tribe,  and  according  to  Chapman  a  Bushman 
woman  would  consider  herself  degraded  by  intercourse  with 
anyone  not  belonging  to  her  tribe.  "  Savage  nations,"  says 
Humboldt,  in  speaking  of  the  Chaymas  of  New  Andalusia, 
"are  subdivided  into  an  infinity  of  tribes,  which,  bearing  a 
cruel  hatred  toward  each  other,  form  no  intermarriages,  even 
when  their  languages  spring  from  the  same  root,  and  when 
only  a  small  arm  of  a  river,  or  a  group  of  hills,  separates  their 
habitation."  Here  there  is  no  chance  for  Leanders  to  swim 
across  the  waters  to  meet  their  Heros.  Poor  Cupid  !  Every- 
body and  everything  seems  to  be  against  him. 

XIII.    MULTIPLICITY   OF  LANGUAGES 

Apart  from  racial  prejudice  there  is  the  further  obstacle 
of  language.  A  man  cannot  court  a  girl  and  learri  to  love 
her  sentimentally  unless  he  can  speak  to  her.  Now  Africa 
alone  has  438  languages,  besides  a  number  of  dialects.  Dr. 
Finsch  says  (38)  that  on  the  Melanasian  island  of  Tanua 
nearly  every  village  has  a  dialect  of  its  own  which  those  of 
the  next  village  cannot  understand ;  and  this  is  a  typical  case. 
American  Indians  usually  communicate  with  each  other  by 
means  of  a  sign  language.  India  has  countless  languages  and 
dialects,  and  in  Canton  the  Chinamen  from  various  parts  of 
the  Empire  have  to  converse  with  each  other  in  "pidjin 
English."  The  Australians,  who  are  perhaps  all  of  one  race, 
nevertheless  have  no  end  of  different  names  for  even  so  com- 
mon a  thing  as  the  omnipresent  kangaroo.1  In  Brazil,  says 
von  Martius,  travellers  often  come  across  a  language  "'used 
only  by  a  few  individuals  connected  with  each  other  by  rela- 
tionship, who  are  thus  completely  isolated,  and  can  hold  no 
communication  with  any  of  their  other  countrymen  far  or 

1  For  instance :  omal-win-yuk-un-der,  illpoogee,  loityo,  kernoo,  iparnoo, 
badjeerie,  mungaroo,  yowerda,  yowada,  yoorda,  yooada,  yongar,  ynnkera,  wore, 
yowardoo,  marloo,  yowdar,  koolbirra,  madooroo,  oggra,  arinva,  oogara,  augara, 
uggerra,  bulka,  yshuckuru,  koongaroo,  chookeroo,  thaldara,  kulla,  etc. 


SOCIAL    BARRIERS  351 

near";  and  how  great  was  the  confusion  of  tongues  among 
other  South  American  Indians  may  be  inferred  from  the  state- 
ment (Waitz,  III.,  355)  that  the  Caribs  were  so  much  in  the 
habit  of  capturing  wives  from  different  tribes  and  peoples 
that  the  men  and  women  of  each  tribe  never  spoke  the  same 
language.  Under  such  circumstances  a  wife  might  become  at- 
tached to  her  husband  as  a  captured,  mute,  and  maltreated 
dog  might  to  his  master;  but  romantic  love  is  as  utterly 
out  of  the  question  as  it  is  between  master  and  dog. 


XIV.    SOCIAL  BARRIERS 

Not  content  with  hating  one  another  cordially,  the  different 
races,  peoples,  and  tribes  have  taken  special  pains  at  all  times 
and  everywhere  to  erect  within  their  own  limits  a  number  of 
barriers  against  free  choice  and  love.  In  France,  Germany, 
and  other  European  countries  there  is  still  a  strong  prejudice 
against  marriages  between  nobles  and  commoners,  though  the 
commoner  may  be  much  nobler  than  the  aristocrat  in  every- 
thing except  the  genealogical  table.  Civilization  is  gradually 
destroying  this  obstacle  to  love,  which  has  done  so  much  to 
promote  immorality  and  has  led  to  so  many  tragedies  involv- 
ing a  number  of  kings  and  princes,  victims  to  the  illusion 
that  accident  of  birth  is  nobler  than  brains  or  refinement. 
But  among  the  ancient  civilized  and  mediaeval  peoples  the 
social  barrier  was  as  rigidly  held  up  as  the  racial  prejudices. 
Milman  remarks,  in  his  History  of  Latin  Christianity  (I.,  499, 
528),  that  among  the  ancient  Romans 

"  there  could  be  no  marriages  with  slaves  [though  slaves, 
being  captives,  were  not  necessarily  of  a  lower  rank,  but 
might  be  princesses].  .  .  .  The  Emperor  Valentinian 
further  defined  low  and  abject  persons  who  might  not  aspire 
to  lawful  union  with  freemen — actresses,  daughters  of  ac- 
tresses, tavern-keepers,  the  daughters  of  tavern-keepers,  pro- 
curers (leones)  or  gladiators,  or  those  who  had  kept  a  public 
shop.  .  .  .  Till  Roman  citizenship  had  been  imparted  to 
the  whole  Roman  Empire,  it  would  not  acknowledge  marriage 
with  barbarians  to  be  more  than  a  concubinage.  Cleopatra 
was  called  only  in  scorn  the  wife  of  Antony.  Berenice  might 


352  OBSTACLES   TO    ROMANTIC    LOVE 

not  presume  to  be  more  than  the  mistress  of  Titus.  The 
Christian  world  closed  marriages  again  within  still  isore  raid 
more  jealous  limits.  Interdictory  statutes  declared  marriages 
with  Jews  and  heathens  not  only  invalid  but  adulterous." 

"  The  Salic  and  Eipuarian  law  condemned  the  freeman 
guilty  of  this  degradation  [marrying  a  slave]  to  slavery  ; 
where  the  union  was  between  a  free  woman  and  a  slave,  that 
of  the  Lombards  and  of  the  Burgundians,  condemned  both 
parties  to  death;  but -if  her  parents  refused  to  put  her  to 
death,  she  became  a  slave  of  the  crown.  The  Eipuarian  law 
condemned  the  female  delinquent  to  slavery  ;  but  the  woman 
had  the  alternative  of  killing  her  base-born  husband.  She 
was  offered  a  distaff  and  a  sword.  If  she  chose  the  distaff  she 
became  a  slave  ;  if  a  sword  she  struck  it  to  the  heart  of  her 
paramour  and  emancipated  herself  from  her  degrading  con- 
nection." 

In  mediaeval  Germany  the  line  was  so  sharply  drawn  be- 
tween the  social  classes  that  for  a  long  time  slavery,  or  even 
death,  was  the  punishment  for  a  mixed  marriage.  In  course 
of  time  this  barbarous  custom  fell  into  disuse,  but  free  choice 
continued  to  be  discouraged  by  the  law  that  if  a  man  married 
a  woman  beneath  him  in  rank,  neither  she  nor  her  children 
were  raised  to  his  rank,  and  in  case  of  his  death  she  had  no 
claim  to  the  usual  provisions  legally  made  for  widows. 

In  India  the  caste  prejudices  are  so  strong  and  varied  that 
they  form  almost  insuperable  barriers  to  free  love-choice. 
"  AVe  find  castes  within  castes,"  says  Sir  Monier  Williams 
(153),  "  so  that  even  the  Brahmans  are  broken  up  and  divided 
into  numerous  races,  which  again  are  subdivided  into  numer- 
ous tribes,  families,  or  sub-castes,"  and  all  these,  he  adds,  "  do 
not  intermarry."  In  Japan,  until  three  decades  ngo,  social 
barriers  as  to  marriage  were  rigidly  enforced,  and  in  China, 
to  this  day,  slaves,  boatmen,  actors,  policemen,  can  marry 
women  of  their  own  class  only.  Nor  are  these  difficulties 
eliminated  at  once  as  we  descend  the  ladder  of  civilization. 
In  Brazil,  Central  America,  in  the  Polynesian  and  other  Pa- 
cific Islands  and  elsewhere  we  find  such  barriers  to  free  mar- 
riage, and  among  the  Malayan  Hovas  of  Madagascar  even  the 
slaves  are  subdivided  into  three  classes,  which  do  not  inter- 
marry !  It  is  only  among  those  peoples  which  are  too  low  to 


RELIGIOUS   PREJUDICE  353 

be  able  to  experience  sentimental  love  anyway  that  this 
formidable  obstacle  off  class  prejudice  vanishes,  while  race  and 
tribal  hatred  remain  in  full  force. 


XV.    RELIGIOUS   PREJUDICE 

Among  peoples  sufficiently  advanced  to  have  dogmas,  relig- 
ion has  always  proved  a  strong  barrier  in  the  way  of  the 
free  bestowal  of  affection.  Not  only  have  Mohammedans  and 
Christians  hated  and  shunned  each  other,  but  the  different 
Christian  sects  for  a  long  time  detested  and  tabooed  one  an- 
other as  cordially  as  they  did  the  heathen  and  the  Jews. 
Tertullian  denounced  the  marriage  of  a  Christian  with  a 
heathen  as  fornication,  and  Westermarck  cites  Jacobs's  remark 
that  "  the  folk-lore  of  Europe  regarded  the  Jews  as  some- 
thing infra-human,  and  it  would  require  an  almost  impossible 
amount  of  large  toleration  for  a  Christian  maiden  of  the 
Middle  Ages  to  regard  union  with  a  Jew  as  anything  other 
than  unnatural." 

There  are  various  minor  obstacles  that  might  be  dwelt  on, 
but  enough  has  been  said  to  make  it  clear  why  romantic 
love  was  the  last  of  the  sentiments  to  be  developed. 

Having  considered  the  divers  ingredients  and  different 
kinds  of  love  and  distinguished  romantic  love  from  sensual 
passion  and  sentimentality,  as  well  as  from  conjugal  affec- 
tion, we  are  now  in  a  position  to  examine  intelligently  and  in 
some  detail  a  number  of  races  in  all  parts  of  the  world,  by 
way  of  further  corroborating  and  emphasizing  the  conclu- 
sions reached. 


SPECIMENS  OF  AFKICAN  LOVE 

WHAT  is  the  lowest  of  all  human  races  ?  The  Bushmen  of 
South  Africa,  say  some  ethnologists,  while  others  urge  the 
claims  of  the  natives  of  Australia,  the  Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  or 
the  Fuegians  of  South  America.  As  culture  cannot  be 
measured  with  a  yardstick,  it  is  impossible  to  arrive  at  any 
definite  conclusion.  For  literary  and  geographic  reasons, 
which  will  become  apparent  later  on,  I  prefer  to  begin  the 
search  for  traces  of  romantic  love  with  the  Bushmen  of 
South  Africa.  And  here  we  are  at  once  confronted  by  the 
startling  assertion  of  the  explorer  James  Chapman,  that 
there  is  "love  in  all  their  marriages."  If  this  is  true — if 
there  is  love  in  all  the  marriages  of  what  is  one  of  the  lowest 
human  races— then  I  have  been  pursuing  a  will-o'-the-wisp  in 
the  preceding  pages  of  this  book,  and  it  will  be  a  waste  of  ink 
and  paper  to  write  another  line.  But  is  it  true  ?  Let  us 
first  see  what  manner  of  mortals  these  Bushmen  are,  before 
subjecting  Mr.  Chapman's  special  testimony  to  a  cross-exami- 
nation. The  following  facts  are  compiled  from  the  most  ap- 
proved authorities. 


BUSHMAN   QUALIFICATIONS   FOR   LOVE 

The  eminent  anatomist  Fritsch,  in  his  valuable  work  on 
the  natives  of  South  Africa  (386-407),  describes  the  Bush- 
men as  being  even  in  physical  development  far  below  the  nor- 
mal standard.  Their  limbs  are  ' '  horribly  thin  "  in  both  sexes ; 
both  women  and  men  are  "  frightfully  ugly/'  and  so  much 
alike  that,  although  they  go  about  almost  naked,  it  is  difficult 
to  tell  them  apart.  He  thinks  they  are  probably  the  abori- 
ginal inhabitants  of  Africa,  scattered  from  the  Cape  to  the  Zam- 
besi, and  perhaps  beyond.  They  are  filthy  in  their  habits,  and 

354 


BUSHMAN   QUALIFICATIONS   FOR  LOVE      355 

"  washing  the  body  is  a  proceeding  unknown  to  them."  When 
the  French  anatomist  Cuvier  examined  a  Bushman  woman, 
he  was  reminded  of  an  ape  by  her  head,  her  ears,  her  move- 
ments, and  her  way  of  pouting  the  lips.  The  language  of 
the  Bushmen  has  often  been  likened  to  the  chattering  of 
monkeys.  According  to  Bleek,  who  has  collected  their  tales, 
their  language  is  of  the  lowest  known  type.  Lichtenstein 
(II.,  42)  found  the  Bushman  women  like  the  men,  "ugly  in 
the  extreme,"  adding  that  "  they  understand  each  other  more 
by  their  gestures  than  by  their  speaking."  "No  one  has 
a  name  peculiar  to  himself/'  Others  have  described  them 
as  having  protuberant  stomachs,  prominent  posteriors,  hol- 
lowed-out  backs,  and  "few  ideas  but  those  of  vengeance  and 
eating."  They  have  only  two  numerals,,  everything  beyond 
two  being  "  much,"  and  except  in  those  directions  where  the 
struggle  for  life  has  sharpened  their  wits,  their  intellectual 
faculties  in  general  are  on  a  level  with  their  mathematics. 
Their  childish  ignorance  is  illustrated  by  a  question  which 
some  of  them  seriously  asked  Chapman  (I.,  83)  one  day — 
whether  his  big  wagons  were  not  the  mothers  of  the  little 
ones  with  slender  tires. 

How  well  their  minds  are  otherwise  adapted  for  such  an 
intellectualized,  refined,  and  esthetic  feeling  as  love,  may  also 
be  inferred  from  the  following  observations.  Lichtenstein 
points  out  that  while  necessity  has  given  them  acute  sight 
and  hearing,  "  they  might  almost  be  supposed  to  have  neither 
taste,  smell,  nor  feeling  ;  no  disgust  is  ever  evinced  by  them  at 
even  the  most  nauseous  kind  of  food,  nor  do  they  appear  to 
have  any  feeling  of  even  the  most  striking  changes  in  the 
temperature  of  the  atmosphere."  "  No  meat,"  says  Chap- 
man (1.,  57),"  in  whatever  state  of  decomposition,  is  ever  dis- 
carded by  Bushmen."  They  dispute  carrion  with  wolves  and 
vultures.  Rabbits  they  eat  skins  and  all,  and  their  menu  is 
varied  by  all  sorts  of  loathsome  reptiles  and  insects. 

No  other  savages,  says  Lichtenstein,  betray  "  so  high  a  de- 
gree of  brutal  ferocity  "  as  the  Bushmen.  They  "  kill  their 
own  children  without  remorse."  The  missionary  Moffat  says 
(57)  that  "when  a  mother  dies  whose  infant  is  not  able  to 


35G  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

shift  for  itself,  it  is,  without  any  ceremony,  buried  alive  with 
the  corpse  of  its  mother."  Kicherer,  another  missionary, 
says  "  there  are  instances  of  parents  throwing  their  tender 
offspring  to  the  hungry  lion,  who  stands  roaring  before  their 
cavern,  refusing  to  depart  till  some  peace-offering  be  made  to 
him/'  He  adds  that  after  a  quarrel  between  husband  and 
wife  the  one  beaten  is  apt  to  take  revenge  by  killing  their 
child ;  and  that,  on  various  occasions,  parents  smother  their 
children,  cast  them  away  in  the  desert,  or  bury  them  alive 
without  remorse.  Murder  is  an  amusement,  and  is  considered 
a  praiseworthy  act.  Livingstone  (M.  T.,  159)  tells  of  a 
Bushman  who  thought  his  god  would  consider  him  a  "  clever 
fellow  "  because  he  had  murdered  a  man,  two  women,  and 
two  children.  When  fathers  and  mothers  become  too  old  to 
be  of  any  use,  or  to  take  care  of  themselves,  they  are  abandoned 
in  the  desert  to  be  devoured  alive  by  wild  beasts.  "  I  have 
often  reasoned  with  the  natives  on  this  cruel  practice,"  says 
the  missionary  Moffat  (99) ;  "  in  reply  to  which,  they  would 
only  laugh."  "  It  appears  an  awful  exhibition  of  human  de- 
pravity," he  adds,  "  when  children  compel  their  parents  to 
perish  for  want,  or  to  be  devoured  by  beasts  of  prey  in  a 
desert,  from  no  other  motive  but  sheer  laziness."  Kicherer 
says  there  are  a  few  cases  of  "natural  affection"  sufficient 
to  raise  these  creatures  to  "  a  level  with  the  brute  creation." 
Moffat,  too,  refers  to  exceptional  cases  of  kindness,  but  the 
only  instance  he  gives  (112)  describes  their  terror  on  finding 
he  had  drunk  some  water  poisoned  by  them,  and  their  glad- 
ness when  he  escaped — which  terror  and  gladness  were,  how- 
ever, very  probably  inspired  not  by  sympathy  but  by  the  idea 
of  punishment  at  causing  the  death  of  a  white  man.  Chap- 
man himself,  the  chosen  champion  of  the  Bushmen,  relates 
(I.,  67)  how,  having  heard  of  Bushmen  rescuing  and  carrying 
home  some  Makalolos  whom  they  had  found  dying  of  thirst 
in  the  desert,  he  believed  it  at  first ;  but  he  adds  : 

"  Had  I  at  that  time  possessed  a  sufficient  knowledge  of 
native  character,  I  should  not  have  been  so  credulous  as  to 
have  listened  to  this  report,  for  the  idea  of  Bushmen  carry- 
ing human  beings  whom  they  had  found  half  dead  out  of  a 


-LOVE    IN   ALL   THEIR  ' -MARRIAGES  "         357 


desert  implies  an  act  of  cliarity  quite  inconsistent  with  their 
natural  disposition  and  habits." 

Barrow  declares  (269)  that  if  Bushmen  come  across  a  Hotten- 
tot guarding  his  master's  cattle,  "  not  contented  with  put- 
ting him  to  immediate  death,  they  torture  him  by  every 
means  of  cruelty  that  their  invention  can  frame,  as  drawing 
out  his  bowels,  tearing  off  his  nails,  scalping,  and  other 
acts  equally  savage."  They  sometimes  bury  a  victim  up  to 
the  neck  in  the  ground  and  thus  leave  him  to  be  pecked  to 
death  by  crows. 


And  yet — I  say  it  once  more — we  are  asked  to  believe  there 
is  "love  in  all  the  marriages"  of  these  fiendish  creatures — 
beings  who,  as  Kicherer  says,  live  in  holes  or  caves,  where 
they  "  lie  close  together  like  pigs  in  a  sty"  and  of  whom 
Moffat  declares  that  with  the  exception  of  Pliny's  Troglo- 
dites  "  no  tribe  or  people  are  surely  more  brutish,  ignorant, 
and  miserable."  Our  amazement  at  Chapman's  assertion  in- 
creases when  we  examine  his  argument  more  closely.  Here 
it  is  (I.,  258-59)  : 

"Although  they  have  a  plurality  of  wives,  which  they 
also  obtain  by  purchase,  there  is  still  love  in  all  their  mar- 
riages, and  courtship  among  them  is  a  very  formal  and,  in 
some  respects,  a  rather  punctilious  affair.  When  a  young 
Bushman  falls  in  love,  he  sends  his  sister  to  ask  permission 
to  pay  his  addresses  ;  with  becoming  modesty  the  girl  holds 
olT  in  a  playful,  yet  not  scornful  or  repulsive  manner  if  she 
likes  him.  The  young  man  next  sends  his  sister  with  a 
spear,  or  some  other  trifling  article,  which  she  leaves  at  the 
door  of  the  girl's  home.  If  this  be  not  returned  within  the 
three  or  four  days  allowed  for  consideration,  the  Bushman 
takes  it  for  granted  that  he  is  accepted,  and  gathering  a 
number  of  his  friends,  he  makes  a  grand  hunt,  generally 
killing  an  elephant  or  some  other  large  animal  and  bringing 
the  whole  of  the  flesh  to  his  intended  father-in-law.  The 
family  now  riot  in  an  abundant  supply.  .  .  .  After  this 
the  couple  are  proclaimed  husband  and  wife,  and  the  man 
goes  to  live  with  his  father-in-law  for  a  couple  of  winters, 


358  SPECIMENS   OF  AFRICAN  LOVE       , 

killing  game,  and  always  laying  the  produce  of  the  chase  at 
his  feet  as  a  mark  of  respect,  duty,  and  gratitude." 

It  would  take  considerable  ingenuity  to  condense  into  an 
equal  number  of  lines  a  greater  amount  of  ignorance  and 
naivete  than  this  passage  includes.  And  yet  a  number  of 
anthropologists  have  accepted  this  passage  serenely  as  expert 
evidence  that  there  is  love  in  all  the  marriages  of  the  lowest 
of  African  races.  Peschel  was  misled  by  it ;  Westermarck 
triumphantly  puts  it  at  the  head  of  his  cases  intended  to 
prove  that  "  even  very  rnde  savages  may  have  conjugal  af- 
fection ;"  Moll  meekly  accepts  it  as  a  fact  (Lib.  Sex.,  Bd.  I., 
Pt.  %,  403) ;  and  it  seems  to  have  made  an  impression  on 
Eatzel,  and  even  on  Fritsch.  If  these  writers  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  examine  Chapman's  qualifications  for  serving  as  a 
witness  in  anthropological  questions,  they  would  have  saved 
themselves  the  humiliation  of  being  thus  duped.  His  very  as- 
sertion that  there  is  love  in  all  Bushman  marriages  ought  to 
have  shown  them  what  an  untrustworthy  witness  he  is  ;  for  a 
more  reckless  and  absurd  statement  surely  was  never  penned 
by  any  globe-trotter.  There  is  not  now,  and  there  never  has 
been,  a  people  among  whom  love  could  be  found  in  all  mar- 
riages, or  half  the  marriages.  In  another  place  (I.,  43)  Chap- 
man gives  still  more  striking  evidence  of  his  unfitness  to  serve 
as  a  witness.  Speaking  of  the  family  of  a  Bamanwato  chief, 
he  says  :  "  I  was  not  aware  of  this  practice  of  early  marriages 
until  the  wife  of  an  old  man  I  had  engaged  here  to  accompany 
us,  a  child  of  about  eight  years  of  age,  was  pointed  out  to 
me,  and  in  my  ignorance  I  laughed  outright,  until  my  inter- 
preter explained  the  matrimonial  usages  of  their  people." 
Chapman's  own  editor  was  tempted  by  this  exhibition  of  ig- 
norance to  write  the  following  footnote  :  "The  author  seems 
not  to  have  been  aware  that  such  early  marriages  are  common 
among  the  Hindoos.1"  He  might  have  added  "  and  among 
most  of  the  lower  races." 

The  ignorance  which  made  Chapman  "  laugh  outright" 
when  he  was  confronted  by  one  of  the  most  elementary  facts 
of  anthropology,  is  responsible  for  his  reckless  assertions  in 


"LOVE   IN   ALL   THEIR   MARRIAGES"        359 

the  paragraph  above  quoted.  It  is  an  ignorant  assumption 
on  his  part  that  it  is  the  feelings  of  "  respect,  duty,  and  grat- 
itude "  that  make  a  Bushman  provide  his  bride's  father  with 
game  for  a  couple  of  winters.  Such  feelings  are  unknown  to 
the  Bushman's  soul.  Working  for  the  bride's  father  is  sim- 
ply his  way  (if  he  has  no  property  to  give)  of  paying  for  his 
wife — an  illustration  of  the  widespread  custom  of  service.  If 
polygamy  and  the  custom  of  purchasing  wives  do  not,  as 
Chapman  intimates,  prevent  love  from  entering  into  all 
Bushman  marriages,  then  these  aborigines  must  be  construct- 
ed on  an  entirely  different  plan  from  other  human  beings, 
among  whom  we  know  that  polygamy  crushes  monopoly  of 
affection,  while  a  marriage  by  purchase  is  a  purse-affair,  not 
a  heart-affair — the  girl  going  nearly  always  to  the  highest 
bidder. 

But  Chapman's  most  serious  error — the  one  on  which  he 
founded  his  theory  that  there  is  love  in  all  Bushman  mar- 
riages— lies  in  his  assumption  that  the  ceremony  of  sham 
capture  indicates  modesty  and  love,  whereas,  as  we  saw  in 
the  chapter  on  Coyness,  it  is  a  mere  survival  of  capture,  the 
most  ruffianly  way  of  securing  a  bride,  in  which  her  choice 
or  feelings  are  absolutely  disregarded,  and  which  tells  us 
nothing  except  that  a  man  covets  a  woman  and  that  she 
feigns  resistance  because  custom,  as  taught  by  her  parents, 
compels  her  to  do  so.  Inasmuch  as  she  must  resist  whether 
she  likes  the  man  or  not,  how  could  such  sham  "coyness" 
be  a  symptom  of  love  ?  Moreover,  it  appears  that  even  this 
sham  coyness  is  exceptional,  since,  as  Burchell  informs  us 
(II.,  59),  it  is  only  when  a  girl  grows  up  to  womanhood  with- 
out having  been  betrothed — "  which,  however,  seldom  hap- 
pens"— that  the  female  receives  the  man's  attentions  with  such 
an  "  affectation  of  great  alarm  and  disinclination  on  her  part." 

Burchell  also  informs  us  that  a  Bushman  will  take  a 
second  wife  when  the  first  one  has  become  old,  "not  in  years 
but  in  constitution  ;"  and  Barrow  discovered  the  same  thing 
(I.,  276)  :  "It  appeared  that  it  was  customary  for  the  elderly 
men  to  have  two  wives,  one  old  and  past  child-bearing,  the 
other  young."  Chapman,  too,  relates  that  a  Bushman  will 


360  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

often  cast  off  his  early  wife  and  take  a  younger  one,  and  as 
that  does  not  prevent  him  from  rinding  affection  in  their  con- 
jugal unions,  we  are  enabled  from  this  to  infer  that  "love" 
means  to  him  not  enduring  sympathy  or  altruistic  capacity 
and  eagerness  for  self-sacrifice,  but  a  selfish,  transient  fond- 
ness continuing  only  as  long  as  a  woman  is  young  and  can 
gratify  a  man's  sexual  appetite.  That  kind  of  love  doubtless 
does  exist  in  all  Bushman  marriages. 

Chapman  further  declares  (II. ,  75)  that  these  people 
lead  "  comparatively  "  chaste  lives.  I  had  supposed  that,  as 
an  egg  is  either  good  or  bad,  so  a  man  or  woman  is  either 
chaste  or  unchaste.  Other  writers,  who  had  no  desire  to 
whitewash  savages,  tell  us  not  only  "comparatively"  but 
positively  what  Bushman  morals  are.  A  Bushman  told 
Theophilus  Halm  (Globus,  XVIII.,  122)  that  quarrels  for 
the  possession  of  women  often  lead  to  murder;  "neverthe- 
less, the  lascivious  fellow  assured  me  it  was  a  fine  thing  to 
appropriate  the  wives  of  others."  Wake  (I.,  205)  says  they 
lend  their  wives  to  strangers,  and  Lichtenstein  tells  us 
(II.,  48)  that  "the  wife  is  not  indissolubly  united  to  the 
husband  ;  but  when  he  gives  her  permission,  she  may  go 
whither  she  will  and  associate  with  any  other  man/'  And 
again  (42) : 

"Infidelity  to  the  marriage  compact  is  not  considered  a 
crime,  it  is  scarcely  regarded  by  the  offended  person.  . 
They  seem  to  have  no  idea  of  the  distinction  of  girl,  maiden, 
and  wife  ;  they  are  all  expressed  by  one  word  alone.  I  leave 
every  reader  to  draw  from  this  single  circumstance  his  own 
inference  with  regard  to  the  nature  of  love  and  every  kind  of 
moral  feeling  among  them."  1 

That  this  is  not  too  severe  a  criticism  is  obvious  from  the 
fact  that  Lichtenstein,  in  judging  savages,  was  rather  apt  to 
err  on  the  side  of  leniency.  The  equally  generous  and  ami- 
able missionary  Moffat  (174-75)  censures  him,  for  instance, 
for  his  favorable  view  of  the  Bechuanas,  saying  that  he  was 
not  with  them  long  enough  to  know  their  real  character. 
Had  he  dwelt  among  them,  accompanied  them  on  journeys, 

•  See  also  Merensky's  Siid  Afnka,  68. 


"LOVE   IN   ALL   THEIR   MARRIAGES"        361 

and  known  them  as  he  (Moffat)  did,  "  he  would  not  have 
attempted  to  revive  the  fabled  delights  and  bliss  of  ignorance 
reported  to  exist  in  the  abodes  of  heathenism." 

It  is  in  comparison  with  these  Bechuanas  that  Chapman 
calls  the  Bushmen  moral,  obviously  confounding  morality 
with  licentiousness.  Without  having  any  moral  principles  at 
all,  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  Bushmen  are  less  licentious 
than  their  neighbors  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  are  less 
well-fed  ;  for  as  old  Burton  remarks,  for  the  most  part  those 
are  "aptest  to  love  that  are  young  and  lusty,  live  at  ease, 
stall-fed,  free  from  cares,  like  cattle  in  a  rank  pasture"- 
whereas  the  Bushmen  are  nearly  always  thin,  half -starved 
denizens  of  the  African  deserts,  enervated  by  constant  fears, 
and  so  unmanly  that  "  a  single  musket  shot,"  says  Lichten- 
stein,  "  will  put  a  hundred  to  flight,  and  whoever  rushes 
upon  them  with  only  a  good  stick  in  his  hand  has  no  reason 
to  fear  any  resistance  from  ever  so  large  a  number." 

Such  men  are  not  apt  to  be  heroes  among  women  in  any 
sense.  Indeed,  Galton  says  (T.  S.  A.,  178),  *' I  am  sure  that 
Bushmen  are,  generally  speaking,  henpecked.  They  always 
consult  their  wives.  The  Damaras  do  riot."  Chapman  him- 
self, with  unconscious  humor,  gives  us  (I.,  391)  a  sample  of 
the  "  love  "  which  he  found  in  "  all  Bushman  marriages  ;"  his 
remarks  confirming  at  the  same  time  the  truth  I  dwelt  on  in 
the  chapter  on  Individual  Preference,  that  among  savages  the 
sexes  are  less  individualized  than  with  ns,  the  men  being 
more  effeminate,  the  women  viragoes : 

"  The  passive  and  effeminate  disposition  of  the  men,  of 
which  we  have  had  frequent  reason  to  complain  in  the  course 
of  this  narrative,  was  illustrated  in  the  revel  which  accom- 
panied the  parting  feast,  when  the  men  allowed  themselves  to 
be  beaten  by  the  women,  who,  I  am  told,  are  in  the  constant 
habit  of  belaboring  their  devoted  husbands,  in  order  to  keep 
them  in  proper  subjection.  On  this  occasion  the  men  got 
broken  heads  at  the  hands  of  their  gentle  partners ;  one  had 
his  nose,  another  his  ear,  nearly  bitten  off." 

Notwithstanding  this  affectionate  "constant  habit"  of 
breaking  their  husbands'  heads,  the  Bushman  women  have 


362  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

not  succeeded  in  teaching  them  even  the  rudiments  of  gal- 
lantry. "  The  woman  is  a  beast  of  burden/'  says  Hahn ; 
"  at  the  same  time  she  is  subjected  to  ill-treatment  which  not 
seldom  leads  to  death/'  When  camp  is  moved,  the  gallant 
husband  carries  his  spear  and  quiver,  the  wife  "  does  the 
rest,"  carrying  the  baby,  the  mat,  the  earthen  cooking-pot, 
the  ostrich  shells,  and  a  bundle  of  skins.  If  it  happens,  as  it 
often  does,  that  there  is  not  enough  to  eat,  the  wife  has  to 
go  hungry.  In  reveng'e  she  usually  prepares  her  own  food 
only,  leaving  him  to  do  his  own  cooking.  If  a  wife  falls  ill 
on  the  way  to  a  new  camping-place,  she  is  left  behind  to 
perish.  (Ratzel,  I.,  7.) 

In  conclusion,  and  as  a  climax  to  my  argument,  I  will 
quote  the  testimony  of  three  missionaries  who  did  not  simply 
make  a  flying  visit  or  two  to  the  country  of  the  Bushmen,  as 
Chapman  did,  but  lived  among  them.  The  Rev.  R.  Moffat 
(49)  cites  the  missionary  Kicherer,  "whose  circumstances  while 
living  among  them  afforded  abundant  opportunities  of  becom- 
ing intimately  acquainted  with  their  real  condition/'  and 
who  wrote  that  the  Bushmen  "  are  total  strangers  to  domestic 
happiness.  The  men  have  several  wives,  but  conjugal  affec- 
tion is  little  known."  This  opinion  is  thus  endorsed  by 
Moffat,  and  a  third  missionary,  the  Rev.  F.  Fleming,  wrote 
(167)  that  among  Bushmen  "  conjugal  affection  seems  totally 
unknown,"  and  pre-matrimonial  love  is  of  course  out  of  ques- 
tion in  a  region  where  girls  are  married  as  infants.  The 
wife  always  has  to  work  harder  than  the  husband.  If  she 
becomes  weak  or  ill  she  is  unceremoniously  left  behind  to 
starve.  (Ratzel,  L,  72.) 


FALSE   FACTS   REGARDING   HOTTENTOTS 

Darwin  has  well  observed  that  a  false  argument  is  compara- 
tively harmless  because  subsequent  discussion  is  sure  to  demol- 
ish it,  whereas  a  false  fact  may  perplex  speculation  for  ages. 
Chapman's  assertion  that  there  is  love  in  all  Bushman  mar- 
riages is  one  of  these  false  facts,  as  our  cross-examination  has 
shown.  In  passing  now  to  the  neighbors  of  the  Bushmen, 


FALSE   FACTS   REGARDING    HOTTENTOTS     363 

the  Hottentots,  let  us  bear  in  mind  the  lesson  taught.  They 
called  themselves  Khoi-Khoin,  "men  of  men,"  while  Van 
Kiebeck's  followers  referred  to  them  as  "  black  stinking 
hounds."  There  is  a  prevalent  impression  that  nearly  all 
Africans  are  negroes.  But  the  Hottentots  are  not  negroes 
any  more  than  are  the  Bushmen,  or  the  Kaffirs,  whom  we 
shall  consider  next.  Ethnologists  are  not  agreed  as  to  the  re- 
lationship that  exists  between  Bushmen  and  Hottentots,  but 
it  is  certain  that  the  latter  represent  a  somewhat  higher  level 
of  civilization.  Yet,  here  again  we  must  guard  carefully 
against  "  false  facts/'  especially  in  reference  to  the  topic  that 
interests  us — the  relations  of  the  sexes.  As  late  as  1896  the 
eminent  American  anthropologist,  Dr.  Brinton,  had  an  article 
in  Science  (October  16th),  in  which  he  remarked  that  "  one 
trait  which  we  admire  in  Hottentots  is  their  regard  for  wom- 
en/' He  was  led  into  making  this  assertion  by  an  article  en- 
titled "  Woman  in  Hottentot  Poetry, "  which  appeared  in  the 
German  periodical  Globus  (Vol.  70,  pp.  173-77).  It  was  writ- 
ten by  Dr.  L.  Jakobowski,  and  is  quite  as  misleading  as  Chap- 
man's book.  Its  logic*  is  most  peculiar.  The  writer  first 
shows  (to  his  own  satisfaction)  that  the  Hottentots  treat  their 
women  somewhat  better  than  other  South  Africans  do,  and 
from  this  "  fact "  he  goes  on  to  infer  that  they  must  have  love- 
songs  !  He  admits,  indeed,  that  (with  a  few  exceptions,  to 
be  presently  considered)  we  know  nothing  of  these  songs,  but 
it  "  seems  certain"  that  they  must  be  sung  at  the  erotic 
dances  of  the  natives  ;  these,  however,  carefully  conceal  them 
from  the  missionaries,  and  as  Jakobowski  naively  adds,  to 
heed  the  missionaries  "would  be  tantamount  to  giving  up 
their  old  sensual  dances. " 

What  facts  does  Jakobowski  adduce  in  support  of  his  asser- 
tion that  Hottentots  have  a  high  regard  for  their  women  ? 
He  says  : 

"  Without  his  wife's  permission  a  Hottentot  does  not  drink 
a  drop  of  milk,  and  should  he  dare  to  do  so,  the  women  of 
his  family  will  take  away  the  cows  and  sheep  and  add  them 
to  their  flocks.  A  girl  has  the  right  to  punish  her  brother  if 
he  violates  the  laws  of  courtesy.  The  oldest  sister  may  have 


364  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

him  chained  and  punished,  and  if  a  slave  who  is  being  casti- 
gated implores  his  master  by  the  name  of  his  (the  master's) 
sister  to  desist,  the  blows  must  cease  or  else  the  master  is 
bound  to  pay  a  fine  to  the  sister  who  has  been  invoked." 


EFFEMINATE    MEN   AND   MASCULINE   WOMEN 

If  all  these  statements  were  real  facts — and  we  shall  pres- 
ently see  that  they  are  not — they  would  prove  no  more  than 
that  the  modern  Hottentots,  like  their  neighbors,  the  Bush- 
men, are  hen-pecked.  Barrow  (I.,  286)  speaks  of  the  "  timid 
and  pusillanimous  mind  which  characterizes  the  Hottentots/' 
and  elsewhere  (144)  he  says  that  their  "  impolitic  custom  of 
hording  together  in  families,  and  of  not  marrying  out  of  their 
own  kraals,  has,  no  doubt,  tended  to  enervate  this  race  of 
men,  and  reduced  them  to  their  present  degenerated  condi- 
tion, which  is  that  of  a  languid,  listless,  phlegmatic  people,  in 
whom  the  prolific  powers  of  nature  seem  to  be  almost  ex- 
hausted." It  does  not,  therefore,  surprise  us  to  be  told  (by 
Thunberg)  that  "it  frequently  happens  that  a  woman  mar- 
ries two  husbands."  And  these  women  are  anything  but 
feminine  and  lovable.  One  of  the  champions  of  the  Hotten- 
tots, Theophilus  Hahn,  says  (Globus,  XII.,  304)  of  the  Nama- 
qua  women  that  they  love  to  torture  their  slaves  :  "  When 
they  cudgel  a  slave  one  can  easily  read  in  their  faces  the  in- 
fernal joy  it  gives  them  to  witness  the  tortures  of  their  vic- 
tims." He  often  saw  women  belaboring  the  naked  back  of  a 
slave  with  branches  of  the  cruel  acacia  definens,  and  finally 
rub  salt  or  saltpetre  into  the  wounds.  Napier  (I.,  59)  says  of 
the  Hottentots,  that  "  if  the  parents  of  a  newly  born  child 
found  him  or  her  de  trop,  the  poor  little  wretch  was  either 
mercilessly  buried  alive,  or  exposed  in  a  thicket,  there  to  be 
devoured  by  beasts  of  prey." 

While  he  had  to  take  it  for  granted  that  there  must  be  love- 
songs  among  these  cruel  Hottentots,  Jakobowski  had  no  trouble 
in  finding  songs  of  hate,  of  defiance,  and  revenge.  Even 
these  cannot  be  cited  without  omitting  objectionable  words. 
Here  is  one,  properly  expurgated  :  "  Take  this  man  away 
from  me  that  he  may  be  beaten  and  his  mother  weep  over 


HOTTENTOT    WOMAN    "RULES   AT    HOME"     3G5 

him  and  the  worms  eat  him.  .  .  .  Let  this  man  be  brought 
before  your  counsel  and  cudgelled  until  not  a  shred  of  flesh 
remains  on  his  .  .  .  that  the  worms  would  care  to  eat  ; 
for  the  reason  that  he  has  done  me  such  a  painful  injury/'  etc. 

HOW  THE   HOTTENTOT   WOMAN    "  RULES   AT  HOME  " 

Jakobowski's  assertion  that  a  man's  oldest  sister  may  have 
him  chained  and  punished  is  obviously  a  cock-and-bull  story. 
It  is  diametrically  opposed  to  what  Peter  Kolben  says  : 
"  The  eldest  son  has  in  a  manner  an  absolute  authority  over 
all  his  brothers  and  sisters/'  "Among  the  Hottentots  an 
eldest  son  may  after  his  father's  death  retain  his  brothers  and 
sisters  in  a  sort  of  slavery."  Kolben  is  now  accepted  as  the 
leading  authority  on  the  aboriginal  Hottentots,  as  he  found 
them  two  centuries  ago,  before  the  missionaries  had  had  time 
to  influence  their  customs.  What  makes  him  the  more  un- 
impeachable as  a  witness  in  our  case  is  that  he  is  decidedly 
prejudiced  in  favor  of  the  Hottentots.1  What  was  the  treat- 
ment of  women  by  Hottentots  as  witnessed  by  Kolben  ?  Is  it 
true  that,  as  Jakobowski  asserts,  the  Hottentot  woman  rules 
at  home  ?  Quite  true ;  most  emphatically  so.  The  husband, 
says  Kolben  (I.,  25*2-55),  after  the  hut  is  built, 

"  has  absolutely  nothing  more  to  do  with  the  house  and  domes- 
tic affairs ;  he  turns  the  care  for  them  over  to  his  wife,  who  is 
obliged  to  procure  provisions  as  well  as  she  can  and  cook  them. 
The  husband  devotes  himself  to  drinking,  eating,  smoking, 
loafing,  and  sleeping,  and  takes  no  more  concern  about  the 
affairs  of  his  family  than  if  he  had  none  at  all.  If  he  goes 
md  to  fish  or  hunt,  it  is  rather  to  amuse  himself  titan  to  help 
his  ivife  and  children.  .  .  .  Even  the  care  of  his  cattle 
the  poor  wife,  despite  all  her  other  work,  shares  with  him. 
The  only  thing  she  is  not  allowed  to  meddle  with  is  the  sale. 
This  is  a  prerogative  which  constitutes  the  man's  honor  and 
which  he  would  not  allow  anyone  to  take  away  from  him  with 
impunity." 

1  As  Fritsch  says  (306)  :  ''Kolben  found  them  most  excellent  specimens  of 
mankind  and  invested  them  with  the  most  manifold  virtues"  (see  also  312  and 
3:2<S).  A  person  thus  biased  is  under  suspicion  when  he  praises,  but  not  when 
he  exposes  shady  sides.  My  page  references  are  to  the  French  edition  of  Kol- 
ben. The  italics  are  mine. 


366  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

The  wife,  he  goes  on  to  say,  has  to  cut  the  fire-wood  and 
carry  it  to  the  house,  gather  roots  and  other  food  and  prepare 
it  for  the  whole  family,  milk  the  cows,  and  take  care  of  the 
children.  The  older  daughters  help  her,  but  need  so  much 
watching  that  they  are  only  an  additional  care ;  and  all  this 
time  the  husband  "lies  lazily  on  his  back."  "Such  is  the 
wretched  life  of  the  Hottentot  woman,"  he  sums  up  ;  "she 
lives  in  a  perpetual  slavery."  Nor  is  there  any  family  life  or 
companionship  ;  they  eat  separately,  and  "  the  wife  never 
sets  foot  in  the  husband's  room,  which  is  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  house  ;  she  seldom  enjoys  his  company.  He  com- 
mands as  master,  she  obeys  as  slave,  without  ever  complain- 
ing." 


"  What  we  admire  in  Hottentots  is  their  regard  for 
women."  Here  are  some  more  illustrations  of  this  loving 
"regard  for  women."  The  Rev.  J.  Philip  (II.,  207)  says 
that  the  Namaqua  women  begged  Moffat  to  remain  with  them, 
telling  him  that  before  he  came  "  we  were  treated  by  the 
men  as  brutes,  and  worse  than  they  treated  brutes."  While 
the  men  loafed  they  had  to  go  and  collect  food,  and  if  they 
returned  unsuccessful,  as  was  often  the  case,  they  were  gen- 
erally beaten.  They  had  to  cook  for  the  men  and  were  not 
allowed  a  bite  till  they  had  finished  their  meal.  "  When 
they  had  eaten,  we  were  obliged  to  retire  from  their  presence 
to  consume  the  offals  given  to  us."  When  twins  are  born, 
says  Kolben  (304),  there  is  great  rejoicing  if  they  are  boys  ; 
two  fat  buffaloes  are  killed,  and  all  the  neighbors  invited  to 
the  feast;  but  if  the  twins  are  girls,  two  sheep  only  are  killed 
and  there  is  no  feast  or  rejoicing.  If  one  of  the  twins  is  a  girl 
she  is  invariably  killed,  buried  alive,  or  exposed  on  a  tree  or 
in  the  bushes.  When  a  boy  has  reached  a  certain  age  he  is 
subjected  to  a  peculiarly  disgusting  ceremony,  and  after  that 
he  may  insult  his  mother  with  impunity  whenever  he  chooses  : 
"  he  may  cudgel  her,  if  he  pleases,  to  suit  his  whim,  without 
any  danger  of  being  called  to  an  account  for  it."  Kolben  says 
he  often  witnessed  such  insolence,  which  was  even  applauded 


CAPACITY   FOR   REFINED   LOVE  367 

as  a  sign  of  manliness  and  courage.  "  What  barbarity  !  "  he 
exclaims.  "  It  is  a  result  of  the  contempt  which  these  peo- 
ples feel  for  women."  He  used  to  remonstrate  with  them, 
but  they  could  hardly  restrain  their  impatience,  and  the  only 
answer  he  could  get  was  "it  is  the  custom  of  the  Hottentots, 
they  have  never  done  otherwise." 

Andersson  (Ngami,  332)  says  of  the  Namaqua  Hottentots : 
"  If  a  man  becomes  tired  of  his  wife,  he  unceremoniously 
returns  her  to  the  parental  roof,  and  however  much  she  (or 
the  parents)  may  object  to  so  summary  a  proceeding,  there  is 
no  remedy."  In  Kolben's  time  wives  convicted  of  adultery 
were  killed,  while  the  men  could  do  as  they  chose.  In  later 
times  a  lashing  with  a  strap  of  rhinoceros  hide  was  substituted 
for  burning.  Kolben  thought  that  the  serious  punishment 
for  adultery  prevalent  in  his  time  argued  that  there  must  be 
love  among  the  Hottentots,  though  he  confessed  he  could  see 
no  signs  of  it.  He  was  of  course  mistaken  in  his  assump- 
tion, for,  as  was  made  clear  in  our  chapter  on  Jealousy,  mur- 
derous rage  at  an  infringement  on  a  man's  conjugal  prop- 
erty does  not  constitute  or  prove  love,  but  exists  entirely 
apart  from  it. 

CAPACITY    FOR   REFINED    LOVE 

The  injuriousness  of  "  false  facts  "  to  science  is  illustrated 
by  a  remark  which  occurs  in  the  great  work  on  the  natives  of 
South  Africa  by  Dr.  Fritsch,  who  is  justly  regarded  as  one  of 
the  leading  authorities  on  that  subject.  Speaking  of  the 
Hottentots  (Namaqua)  he  says  (351)  that  "whereas  Tindall 
indicates  sensuality  and  selfishness  as  two  of  their  most  prom- 
inent characteristics,  Th.  Hahn  lauds  their  conjugal  attach- 
ment independent  of  fleshly  love."  Here  surely  is  unim- 
peachable evidence,  for  Theophilus  Hahn,  the  son  of  a 
missionary,  was  born  and  bred  among  these  peoples.  But  if 
we  refer  to  the  passage  which  Fritsch  alluded  to  (Globus, 
XII.,  306),  we  find  that  the  reasons  Hahn  gives  for  believing 
that  Hottentots  are  capable  of  something  higher  than  carnal 
desires  are  that  many  of  them,  though  rich  enough  to  have  a 
harem,  content  themselves  with  one  wife,  and  that  if  a  wife 


368  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN    LOVE 

dies  before  her  husband,  he  very  seldom  marries  again.  Yet 
in  the  very  next  sentence  Halm  mentions  a  native  trait  which 
sufficiently  explains  both  these  customs.  "  Brides,"  he  says, 
"  cost  many  oxen  and  sheep,  and  the  men,  as  among  other 
South  African  peoples,  the  Kaffirs,  for  instance,  would  rather 
have  big  herds  of  cattle  than  a  good-looking  wife."  Apart  from 
this  explanation,  I  fail  to  see  what  necessary  connection 
there  is  between  a  man's  being  content  with  one  wife  and 
his  capacity  for  sentimental  love,  since  his  greed  for  cattle 
and  his  lack  of  physical  stamina  and  appetite  fully  account 
for  his  monogamy.  This  matter  must  be  judged  from  the 
Hottentot  point  of  view,  not  from  ours.  It  is  well  known 
that  in  regions  where  polygamy  prevails  a  man  who  wishes  to 
be  kind  to  his  wife  does  not  content  himself  with  her,  but 
marries  another,  or  several  others,  to  share  the  hard  work 
with  her.  These  Hottentots  have  not  enough  consideration 
for  their  hard-worked  wives  to  do  even  that. 


HOTTENTOT   COARSENESS 

The  coarseness  and  obscenity  of  the  Hottentots  constitute 
further  reasons  for  believing  them  incapable  of  refined  love. 
Their  eulogist,  Kolben,  himself  was  obliged  to  admit  that  they 
"  find  a  peculiar  pleasure  in  filth  and  stench  "  and  "  are  in 
the  matter  of  diet  the  filthiest  people  in  the  world."  The 
women  eat  their  own  vermin,  which  swarm  in  their  scant 
attire.  Nor  is  decency  the  object  for  which  they  wear  this 
scant  dress — quite  the  reverse.  Speaking  of  the  male  Hot- 
tentot's very  simple  dress,  Barrow  says  (I.,  154)  that  "  if  the 
real  intent  of  it  was  the  promotion  of  decency,  it  should  seem 
that  he  has  widely  missed  his  aim,  as  it  is  certainly  one  of  the 
most  immodest  objects,  in  such  a  situation  as  he  places  it, 
that  could  have  been  contrived."  And  concerning  the  little 
apron  worn  by  the  women  he  says  :  "  Great  pains  seem  to 
be  taken  by  the  women  to  attract  notice  toward  this  part  of 
their  persons.  Large  metal  buttons  ...  or  anything 
that  makes  a  great  show,  are  fastened  to  the  borders  of  this 
apron."  Kolben  relates  that  when  a  Hottentot  desires  to 


FAT   VERSUS   SENTIMENT  309 

marry  a  girl  lie  goes  with  his  father  to  the  girl's  father,  who 
gives  the  answer  after  consulting  with  his  wife.  If  the  verdict 
is  unfavorable  "  the  gallant's  love  for  the  beauty  is  readily 
cured  and  he  casts  his  eyes  on  another  one."  But  a  refusal 
is  rarely  given  unless  the  girl  is  already  promised  to  another. 
The  girl,  too,  is  consulted,  but  only  nominally,  for  if  she 
refuses  she  can  retain  her  liberty  only  by  an  all-night  strug- 
gle with  her  suitor  in  which  she  usually  succumbs,  after  which 
she  has  to  marry  him  whether  she  wishes  to  or  not.  Kolben 
gives  other  details  of  the  marriage  ceremony  which  are  too 
filthy  to  be  even  hinted  at  here. 


FAT   VERSUS   SENTIMENT 

By  persons  who  had  lived  many  years  among  the  Colonial 
Hottentots,  Fritsch  (328)  was  assured  that  these  people,  far 
from  being  the  models  of  chastity  Kolben  tried  to  prove  them, 
indulged  in  licentious  festivals  lasting  several  days,  at  which 
all  restraints  were  cast  aside.  And  this  brings  us  back  t-o  our 
starting-point — Dr.  Jakobowski's  peculiar  argument  concern- 
ing the  "  love  poems  "  which  he  feels  sure  must  be  sung  at  the 
erotic  dances  of  the  natives,  though  they  are  carefully  con- 
cealed from  the  missionaries.  If  they  were  poems  of  senti- 
ment, the  missionaries  would  not  disapprove,  and  there  would 
be  no  reason  for  concealing  them  ;  but  the  foregoing  remarks 
show  clearly  enough  what  kind  of  "love"  they  would  be 
likely  to  sing  about.  If  any  doubt  remained  on  the  sub- 
ject the  following  delightful  confession,  which  the  eugolist 
Hahn  makes  in  a  moment  of  confidence,  would  settle  the 
matter.  To  appreciate  the  passage,  bear  in  mind  that  the 
Hottentots  are  the  people  among  whom  excessive  posterior 
corpulence  (steatopyga)  is  especially  admired  as  the  acme  of 
physical  attractions.  Now  Hahn  says  (335)  : 

"  The  young  girls  drink  whole  cups  of  liquid  fat,  and  for  a 
good  reason,  the  object  being  to  attain  a  very  rotund  body  by 
a  fattening  process,  in  order  that  Hymen  may  claim  them  as 
soon  as  possible.  They  do  not  grow  sentimental  and  sick 
from  love  and  jealousy,  nor  do  they  die  from  the  anguish  and 


370  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

woes  of  love,  as  our  women  do,  nor  engage  in  love-intrigues, 
but  they  look  at  the  whole  matter  in  a  very  materialistic  and. 
sober  way.  Their  sole  love-affair  is  the  fattening  process,  on 
the  result  of  which,  as  with  a  pig,  depends  the  girl's  value  and 
the  demand  for  her" 

In  this  last  sentence,  which  I  have  taken  the  liberty  to 
italicize,  lies  the  philosophy  of  African  "love"  in  general, 
and  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  declare  it  on  such  unquestionable 
authority.  What  a  Hottentot  "  regards  "  in  a  woman  is  Fat  ; 
Sentiment  is  out  of  the  question.  When  Hottentots  are  to- 
gether, says  Kolben, 

"  you  never  see  them  give  tender  kisses  or  cast  loving  glances 
at  each  other.  Day  and  night,  on  every  occasion,  they  are 
so  cold  and  so  indifferent  to  each  other  that  you  would  not 
believe  that  they  love  each  other  or  are  married.  If  in  a  hut 
there  were  twenty  Hottentots  with  their  wives,  it  would  be 
impossible  to  tell,  either  from  their  words  or  actions,  which 
of  them  belonged  together." 


SOUTH   AFRICA   LOVE-POEMS 

As  intimated  on  a  preceding  page,  there  are,  among  Dr. 
Jakobowski's  examples  of  Hottentot  lyrics1  a  few  which 
may  be  vaguely  included  in  the  category  of  love-poems. 
"  Where  did  you  hear  that  I  love  you  while  you  are  unloving 
toward  me?"  complained  one  Hottentot;  while  another 
warned  his  friend  :  "  That  is  the  misfortune  pursuing  you 
that  you  love  where  you  ought  not  to  ! "  A  third  declared. 
"I  shall  not  cease  to  loye  however  much  they  (i.e.,  the  par- 
ents or  guardians)  may  oppose  me."  A  fourth  addresses  this 
song  to  a  young  girl  : 

My  lioness ! 

Are  you  afraid  that  I  may  bewitch  you  ? 

You  milk  the  cow  with  fleshy  hand. 

Bite  me ! 

Pour  out  (the  milk)  for  me  ! 

My  lioness ! 

Daughter  of  a  great  man  ! 

1  Gathered  from  Hahn's  Tsuni  and  Kronlein's  Wortchatz  tier  Namaqua  Hot- 
tentotten. 


KAFFIR   MORALS  371 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  in  the  first  three  of  these  aboriginal 
"  lyrics"  there  is  not  the  slightest  indication  that  the  "love  " 
expressed  rises  above  mere  covetous  desire  of  the  senses  ; 
and  as  for  the  fourth,  what  is  there  in  it  besides  reference  to 
the  girl's  fatness  (fleshy  hand),  her  utility  in  milking  and 
serving  the  milk  and  her  carnal  bites?  Yet,  in  this  frank 
avowal  of  masculine  selfishness  and  sensuality  Halm  finds  "  a 
certain  refinement  of  sentiment "  I 


A   HOTTENTOT    FLIRT 

Though  a  Hottentot  belle's  value  in  the  marriage  market 
is  determined  chiefly  by  the  degree  of  her  corpulence,  girls  of 
the  higher  families  are  not,  it  seems,  devoid  of  other  means  of 
attracting  the  attention  of  men.  At  least  I  infer  so  from  the 
following  passage  in  Dalton's  book  (T.  8.  A.,  104)  relating  to 
a  certain  chief  : 

"  He  had  a  charming  daughter,  the  greatest  belle  among 
the  blacks  that  I  had  ever  seen,  and  the  most  thorough -paced 
coquette.  Her  main  piece  of  finery,  and  one  that  she  flirted 
about  in  a  most  captivating  manner,  was  a  shell  of  the  size  of 
a  penny-piece.  She  had  fastened  it  to  the  end  of  a  lock  of 
front  hair,  which  was  of  such  length  as  to  permit  the  shell  to 
dangle  to  the  precise  level  of  her  eyes.  She  had  learned  to 
move  her  head  with  so  great  precision  as  to  throw  the  shell 
exactly  over  whichever  eye  she  pleased,  and  the  lady's  win- 
ning grace  consisted  in  this  feat  of  bo-peep,  first  eclipsing  an 
eye  and  languishing  out  of  the  other,  and  then  with  an  ele- 
gant toss  of  the  head  reversing  the  proceedings." 


KAFFIR    MORALS 

Our  search  for  true  love  in  Africa  has  thus  far  resulted  in 
failure,  the  alleged  discoveries  of  a  few  sanguine  sentiment- 
alists having  proved  to -be  illusory.  If  we  now  turn  to  the 
Kaffirs,  who  share  with  the  Hottentots  the  southern  extremity 
of  Africa,  we  find  that  here  again  we  must  above  all  things 
guard  against  "  false  facts."  Westermarck  (61),  after  citing 
Barrow  (I., '206)  to  the  effect  that  "a  Kaffir  woman  is  chaste  and 
extremely  modest,"  adds  :  "and  Mr.  Cousins  informs  me  that 


372  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

between  their  various  feasts  the  Kaffirs,  both  men  and  women, 
have  to  live  in  strict  continence,  the  penalty  being  banish- 
ment from  the  tribe  if  this  law  is  broken."  It  would  be  in- 
teresting to  know  what  Barrow  means  by  "extremely  modest " 
since  he  admits  that  that  attribute  "  might  be  questioned.  If, 
for  instance,  a  young  woman  be  asked  whether  she  be  married, 
not  content  with  giving  the  simple  negative,  she  throws  open 
her  cloak  and  displays  her  bosom  ;  arid  as  most  frequently  she 
has  no  other  covering  beneath,  she  perhaps  may  discover  at 
the  same  time,  though  unintentionally,  more  of  her  charms." 
But  it  is  his  assertion  that  "  a  Kaffir  woman  is  chaste"  that 
clashes  most  outrageously  with  all  recorded  facts  and  the  tes- 
timony of  the  leading  authorities,  including  many  mission- 
aries. Dr.  Fritsch  says  in  the  preface  to  his  standard  book  on 
the  natives  of  South  Africa  that  the  assertions  of  Barrow  are 
to  be  accepted  "with  caution,  or  rather  with  suspicion."  It 
is  the  absence  of  this  caution  and  suspicion  that  has  led 
Westermarck  into  so  many  erroneous  conclusions.  In  the 
present  instance,  however,  it  is  absolutely  incomprehensible 
why  he  should  have  cited  the  one  author  who  calls  the  Kaffirs 
chaste,  ignoring  the  crushing  weight  of  countless  facts  show- 
ing them  to  be  extremely  dissolute. 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  testimony  as  to  the  chastity  of 
wild  races  generally  comes  from  mere  travellers  among  them, 
ignorant  of  their  language  and  intimate  habits,  whereas  the 
writings  of  those  who  have  dwelt  among  them  give  one  a  very 
different  idea.  As  the  Rev.  Mr.  Holden  remarks  (187),  those 
who  have  "  boasted  of  the  chastity,  purity,  and  innocence  of 
heathen  life  "  have  not  been  "  behind  the  scenes."  Here,  for 
instance,  is  Geo.  McCall  Theal,  who  lived  among  the  Kaffir 
people  twenty  years,  filling  various  positions  among  them, 
varying  from  a  mission  teacher  to  a  border  magistrate,  and  so 
well  acquainted  with  their  language  that  he  was  able  to  col- 
lect and  print  a  volume  on  Kaffir  Folk  Lore.  Like  all  writers 
who  have  made  a  specialty  of  M  subject,  he  is  naturally  some- 
what biased  in  favor  of  it,  and  this  gives  still  more  weight 
to  his  words  on  negative  points.  Regarding  the  question  of 
chastity  he  says ; 


KAFFIR    MORALS  373 

"  Kaffir  ideas  of  -some  kinds  of  morality  are  very  low.  The 
custom  is  general  for  a  married  woman  to  have  a  lover  who  is 
not  her  husband,  and  little  or  no  disgrace  attaches  to  her  on 
tliis  account.  The  lover  is  generally  subject  to  a  fine  of  no 
great  amount,  and  the  husband  may  give  the  woman  a  beat- 
ing, but  that  finishes  the  penalty." 

The  German  missionary  Neuhaus  bears  witness  to  the  fact 
that  (like  the  Bushmen  and  most  other  Africans)  the  Kaffirs 
are  in  one  respect  lower  than  the  lowest  beasts,  inasmuch  as 
for  the  sake  of  filthy  lucre  parents  often  marry  off  their  daugh- 
ters before  they  have  attained  maturity.  Girls  of  eight  to  ten 
are  often  given  into  the  clutches  of  wealthy  old  men  who  are 
already  supplied  with  a  harem.  Concerning  girls  in  general, 
and  widows,  we  are  told  that  they  can  do  whatever  they  please, 
and  that  they  only  ask  their  lovers  not  to  be  imprudent,  as 
they  do  not  wish  to  lose  their  liberty  and  assume  maternal 
duties  too  soon  if  they  can  help  it.  Lichtenstein  says  (I., 
204)  that  "a  traveller  remaining  some  time  with  a  horde 
easily  finds  an  unmarried  young  woman  with  whom  he  con- 
tracts the  closest  intimacy  ;  nay,  it  is  not  uncommon,  as  a 
mark  of  hospitality,  to  offer  him  one  as  a  companion,"  and 
no  wonder,  for  among  these  Kaffirs  there  is  "no  feeling  of 
love  in  marriage  "  (101).  The  German  missionary  Alberti 
relates  (97)  that  sometimes  a  Kaffir  girl  is  offered  to  a  man 
in  marriage.  Having  assured  himself  of  her  health,  he  claims 
the  further  privilege  of  a  night's  acquaintance;  after  which, 
if  she  pleases  him,  he  proceeds  to  bargain  for  her  permanent 
possession.  Another  competent  and  reliable  observer,  Stephen 
Kay,  corresponding  member  of  the  South  African  Institution, 
who  censures  Barrow  sharply  for  his  incorrect  remarks  on 
Kaffir  morals,  says  : 

"  No  man  deems  it  any  sin  whatever  to  seduce  his  neigh- 
bor's wife  :  his  only  grounds  of  fear  are  the  probability  of  de- 
tection, and  the  fine  demanded  by  law  in  such  cases.  The 
females,  accustomed  from  their  youth  up  to  this  gross  de- 
pravity of  manners,  neither  manifest,  nor  apparently  feel,  any 
delicacy  in  stating  and  describing  circumstances  of  the  most 
shameful  nature  before  an  assemblage  of  men,  whose  language 
is  often  obscene  beyond  description  "  (105).  "  Fornication  is 


374  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

a  common  and  crying  sin.  The  women  are  well  acquainted 
with  the  means  of  procuring  miscarriage  ;  and  those  means 
are  not  unfrequently  resorted  to  without  bringing  upon  the 
offender  any  punishment  or  disgrace  whatever. 
When  adultery  is  clearly  proved  the  husband  is  generally 
fully  satisfied  with  the  fine  usually  levied  upon  the  delin- 
quent. ...  So  degraded  indeed  are  their  views  on  sub- 
jects of  this  nature  .  .  .  that  the  man  who  has  thus 
obtained  six  or  eight  head  of  cattle  deems  it  a  fortunate  cir- 
cumstance rather  than  otherwise  ;  he  at  once  renews  his  in- 
timacy with  the  seducer,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  days 
becomes  as  friendly  and  familiar  with  him  as  ever  "  (141-42). 

"  Whenever  the  Kaffir  monarch  hears  of  a  young  woman 
possessed  of  more  than  ordinary  beauty,  and  at  all  withm  ^his 
reach,  he  unceremoniously  sends  for  her  or  fetches  her  him- 
self. .  .  .  Seldom  or  never  does  any  young  girl,  residing 
in  his  immediate  neighborhood,  escape  defilement  after  at- 
taining the  age  of  puberty  (165)."  "  Widows  are  constantly 
constrained  to  be  the  servants  of  sin"  (177). 

"  The  following  singular  usage  obtains  universally  .  .  . 
all  conjugal  intercourse  is  entirely  suspended  from  the  time 
of  accouchement  until  the  child  be  completely  weaned,  which 
seldom  takes  place  before  it  is  able  to  run  about.  Hence 
during  the  whole  of  that  period,  an  illicit  and  clandestine  in- 
tercourse with  strangers  is  generally  kept  up  by  both  parties, 
to  the  utter  subversion  of  everything  like  attachment  and 
connubial  bliss.  Something  like  affection  is  in  some  in- 
stances apparent  for  awhile,  but  it  is  generally  of  compara- 
tively short  duration." 

Fritsch  (95)  describes  a  Kaffir  custom  called  U'pundlilo 
which  has  only  lately  been  abolished :  "  Once  in  awhile 
a  troupe  of  young  men  was  sent  from  the  principal  town 
to  the  surrounding  country  to  capture  all  the  unmarried  girls 
they  could  get  hold  of  and  carry  them  away  forcibly.  These 
girls  had  to  serve  for  awhile  as  concubines  of  strangers  visit- 
ing the  court.  After  a  few  days  they  were  allowed  to  go  and 
their  places  were  taken  by  other  girls  captured  in  the  same 
way."  Before  the  Kaffirs  came  under  the  influence  of  civili- 
zation, this  custom  gave  no  special  offence  ;  "  and  why  should 
it  ?"  adds  Fritsch,  "  since  with  the  Kaffirs  marriageable  girls 
are  morally  free  and  their  purity  seems  a  matter  of  no  special 
significance."  When  boys  reach  the  age  of  puberty,  he 


KAFFIR   MORALS  375 

says  (109),  they  are  circumcised  ;  "  thereupon,  while  they  are 
in  the  transition  stage  between  boyhood  and  manhood,  they 
are  almost  entirely  independent  of  all  laws,  especially  in  their 
sexual  relations,  so  that  they  are  allowed  to  take  possession 
with  impunity  of  any  unmarried  women  they  choose."  The 
Kaffirs  also  indulge  in  obscene  dances  and  feasts.  Warner 
says  (97)  that  at  the  ceremony  of  circumcision  virtue  is  pol- 
luted while  yet  in  its  embryo.  "A  really  pure  girl  is  un- 
known among  the  raw  Kaffirs,"  writes  Hoi.  "  All  demoraln 
sense  of  purity  and  shame  is  lost."  While  superstition  for- 
bids the  marrying  of  first  cousins  as  incestuous,  real  "  incest 
in  its  worst  forms" — between  mother  and  sons — prevails. 
At  the  ceremony  called  Ntonjane  the  young  girls  "  are  de- 
graded and  polluted  at  the  very  threshold  of  womanhood,  and 
every  spark  of  virtuous  feeling  annihilated"  (197,  207,  185). 

"  Immorality,"  says  Fritsch  (112),  "  is  too  deeply  rooted  in 
African  blood  to  make  it  difficult  to  find  an  occasion  for  in- 
dulging in  it ;  wherefore  the  custom  of  celebrating  puberty, 
harmless  in  itself,  is  made  the  occasion  for  lascivious  prac- 
tices ;  the  unmarried  girls  choose  companions  with  whom 
they  cohabit  as  long  as  the  festival  lasts  .  .  .  usually 
three  or  four  days."  After  giving  other  details,  Fritsch  thus 
sums  up  the  situation :  "  These  diverse  facts  make  it  clear 
that  with  these  tribes  (Ama-Xosa)  woman  stands,  if  not  mor- 
ally, at  least  judicially,  little  above  cattle,  and  consequently 
it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  family  life  in  one  sense  of  the 
word." 

In  his  Nursery  Tales  of  the  Zulus  (255)  Callaway  gives  an 
account,  in  the  native  language  as  well  as  in  the  English,  of 
the  license  indulged  in  at  Kaffir  puberty  festivals.  Young 
men  assemble  from  all  quarters.  The  maidens  have  a  "girl- 
king  "to  whom  the  men  are  obliged  to  give  a  present  be- 
fore they  are  allowed  to  enter  the  hut  chosen  for  the  meeting. 
4  k  The  young  people  remain  alone  and  sport  after  their  own 
fancies  in  every  way."  "  It  is  a  day  of  filthiness  in  which 
everything  may  be  done  according  to  the  heart's  desire  of 
those  who  gather  around  the  iimr/niif/a."  The  Rev.  J.  Mac- 
DouiilJ,  a  man  of  scientific  attainments,  gives  a  detailed 


376  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

account  of  the  incredibly  obscene  ceremonies  to  which  the 
girls  of  the  Zulu-Kaffirs  are  subjected,  and  the  licentious  yet 
Malthusian  conduct  of  the  young  folks  in  general  who  "  sep- 
arate into  pairs  and  sleep  in  puris  naturalibus,  for  that  is 
strictly  ordained  by  custom/'  The  father  of  a  girl  thus  treat- 
ed feels  honored  on  receiving  a  present  from  her  partner.1 

INDIVIDUAL   PREFERENCE   FOR— COWS 

The  utter  indifference  of  the  Kaffirs  to  chastity  and  their 
licentiousness,  approved  and  even  prescribed  by  national  cus- 
tom, were  not  the  only  obstacle  to  the  growth  of  sentiments 
rising  above  mere  sensuality.  Commercialism  was  another 
fatal  obstacle.  I  have  already  quoted  Halm's  testimony  that 
a  Kaffir  "  would  rather  have  big  herds  of  cattle  than  a  good- 
looking  wife."  Dohne  asserts  (Shooter,  88)  that  "a  Kaffir 
loves  his  cattle  more  than  his  daughter,"  and  Kay  (111)  tells 
us  that 

"  he  is  scarcely  ever  seen  shedding  tears,  excepting  when  the 
chief  lays  violent  hands  upon  some  part  of  his  horned  family  ; 
this  pierces  him  to  the  heart  and  produces  more  real  grief 
than  would  be  evinced  over  the  loss  of  wife  and  child."  On 
another  page  (85)  he  says  that  in  time  of  war  the  poor  women 
fall  into  the  enemy's  hands,  because  "  their  husbands  afford 
them  no  assistance  or  protection  whatever.  The  preservation 
of  the  cattle  constitutes  the  grand  object  of  their  solicitude  ; 
and  with  these,  which  are  trained  for  the  purpose,  they  run 
at  an  astonishing  rate,  leaving  both  wives  and  children  to  take 
their  chances." 

Such  being  the  Kaffir's  relative  estimation  of  cows  and 
women,  we  might  infer  that  in  matrimonial  arrangements 
bovine  interests  were  much  more  regarded  than  any  possible 

1  The  details  given  by  the  Rev.  J.  MacDonald  (Journal  Anthrop.  Soc.,  XX., 
1890,  116-18)  cannot  possibly  be  cited  here.  Our  argument  is  quite  strong 
enough  without  them.  Westermarck  devotes  ten  pages  to  an  attempt  to  prove 
that  immorality  is  not  characteristic  of  uncivilized  races  in  general.  He  leads 
off  with  that  preposterous  statement  of  Barrow  that  u  a  Kaffir  woman  is  chaste 
and  extremely  modest ;  "  and  most  of  his  other  instances  are  based  on  equally 
flimsy  evidence.  I  shall  recur  to  the  subject  repeatedly.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  call  the  reader's  attention  to  the  unconscious  humor  of  the  assertion  of 
Wester marck's  friend  Cousins  that  "  between  their  various  feasts  the  Kaffirs 
have  to  live  in  strict  continence  " — which  is  a  good  deal  like  saying  of  a  toper 
that  u  between  drinks  he  is  strictly  sober." 


BARGAINING    FOR   BRIDES  377 

sentimental  considerations  ;  and  this  we  find  to  be  the  case. 
Harrow  (149)  tells  us  that 

"  the  females  heing  considered  as  the  property  of  their  par- 
ents, arc  always  disposed  of  by  sale.  xThe  common  price  of 
a  wife  is  an  ox  or  a  couple  of  cows.  Love  with  them  is  a  very 
•  confined  passion,  taking  but  little  hold  on  the  mind.  AVheii 
an  offer  is  made  for  the  purchase  of  a  daughter,  she  feels 
little  inclination  to  refuse  ;  she  considers  herself  as  an  article 
at  market,  and  is  neither  surprised,  nor  unhappy,  nor  inter- 
ested, on  being  cold  that  she  is  about  to  be  disposed  of. 
There  is  no  previous  courtship,  no  exchange  of  fine  senti- 
ments, no  nice  feelings,  no  attentions  to  catch  the  affections 
and  to  attach  the  heart.1 


BARGAINING    FOR   BRIDES 

The  Rev.  L.  Grout  says  in  his  Zululand  (166)  : 

"  So  long  as  the  government  allows  the  custom  called  uku- 
lobolisUa,  the  selling  of  women  in  marriage  for  cattle,  just  so 
long  the  richer  and  so,  for  the  most  part,  the  older  and  the 
already  married  man  will  be  found,  too  often,  the  successful 
suitor — not  indeed  at  the  feet  of  the  maiden,  for  she  is  al- 
lowed little  or  no  right  to  a  voice  as  to  whom  she  shall  marry, 
but  at  the  hands  of  her  heathen  proprietor,  who,  in  his  de- 
gradation, looks  less  at  the  affections  and  preferences  of  his 
daughter  than  at  the  surest  way  of  filling  his  kraal  with 
cattle,  and  thus  providing  for  buying  another  wife  or  two." 

So  purely  commercial  is  the  transaction  that  if  a  wife  proves 
very  fruitful  and  healthy,  a  demand  for  more  cattle  is  made 
on  her  husband  (165).  Should  she  be  feeble  or  barren  he 
may  send  her  back  to  her  father  and  demand  compensation. 
A  favorite  way  is  to  retain  a  wife  as  a  slave  and  go  on  marry- 
ing other  girls  as  fast  as  the  man's  means  allow.  Theal  says 
(213)  that  if  a  wife  has  no  children  the  husband  has  a  right 
to  return  her  to  her  parents  and  if  she  has  a  marriageable 
sister,  take  her  in  exchange.  But  the  acme  of  commercial- 
ism is  reached  in  a  Zulu  marriage  ceremony  described  by 

1  It  may  seem  inconsistent  to  condemn  Barrow  on  one  page  as  unreliable  and 
then  quote  him  approvingly  on  another.  But  in  the  first  case  his  assertion  was 
utterly  opposed  to  the  unanimous  testimony  of  those  who  knew  the  Kaffirs  best, 
while  in  this  instance  his  remarks  are  in  perfect  accordance  with  what  we 
would  expect  under  the  circumstances  and  with  the  testimony  of  the  standard 
authorities. 


378  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

Shooter.  At  the  wedding  the  matrons  belonging  to  the  bride- 
groom's party  tell  the  bride  that  too  many  cows  have  been 
given  for  her  ;  that  she  is  rather  plain  than  otherwise,  and 
will  never  be  able  to  do  a  married  woman's  work,  and  that 
altogether  it  is  very  kind  of  the  bridegroom  to  condescend  to 
marry  her.  Then  the  bride's  friends  have  their  innings.' 
They  condole  with  her  parents  on  the  very  inadequate  num- 
ber of  cows  paid  for  her,  the  loveliest  girl  in  the  village  ;  de- 
clare that  the  husband  is  quite  unworthy  of  her,  and  ought  to 
be  ashamed  for  driving  such  a  hard  bargain  with  her  parents. 
Leslie's  assertion  (194)  that  it  is  "a  mistake  to  imagine 
that  a  girl  is  sold  by  her  father  in  the  same  manner  and  with 
the  same  authority  with  which  he  would  dispose  of  a  cow/' 
is  contradicted  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  the  leading 
authorities.  Some  of  these  have  already  been  cited.  The 
reliable  Fritsch  says  (112)  of  the  Ama-Xosa  branch  :  "It  is 
characteristic  that  as  a  rule  the  inclination  of  the  girl  to  be 
married  is  never  consulted,  but  that  her  nearest  male  rela- 
tives select  a  husband  for  her  to  whom  she  is  unceremo- 
niously sent.  They  choose,  of  course,  a  man  who  can  pay." 
If  she  is  a  useful  girl  he  is  not  likely  to  refuse  the  'offer,  yet 
he  bargains  to  get  her  as  cheaply  as  possible  (.though  he 
knows  that  a  Kaffir  girl's  chief  pride  is  the  knowledge  that 
many  heads  of  cattle  were  paid  for  her).  Regarding  the 
Ama-Zulu,  Fritsch  says  (141-42)  that  the  women  are  slaves 
and  a  wife  is  regarded  as  so  much  invested  capital.  "  If  she 
falls  ill,  or  remains  childless,  so  that  the  man  does  not  get 
his  money's  worth,  he  often  returns  her  to  her  father  and 
asks  his  cattle  back."  Older  and  less  attractive  women  are 
sometimes  married  off  on  credit,  or  to  be  paid  for  in  instal- 
ments. "  In  all  this,"  Fritsch  sums  up,  "  there  is  certainly 
little  of  poetry  and  romance,  but  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
under  the  influence  of  European  residents  an  improvement 
has  been  effected  in  some  quarters/'  He  himself  saw  at  Natal 
a  young  couple  who  "showed  a  certain  interest  in  each 
other,"  such  as  one  expects  of  married  persons  ;  but  in  parts 
untouched  by  European  influence,  he  adds,  true  conjugal 
devotion  is  an  unusual  thing. 


AMOROUS    PREFERENCES  379 


AMOROUS    PREFERENCES 

It  is  probably  owing  to  such  European  influences  that 
Theal  (209)  found  that  although  a  woman  is  not  legally  sup- 
posed to  be  consulted  in  the  choice  of  a  husband,  in  point  of 
fact  "  matches  arising  from  mutual  love  are  not  uncommon. 
In  such  cases,  if  any  difficulties  are  arranged  by  the  guar- 
dians on  either  side,  the  young  people  do  not  scruple  to  run 
away  together."  The  word  "love"  in  this  passage  is  of 
course  used  in  that  vague  sense  which  indicates  nothing  but 
a  preference  of  one  man  or  woman  to  others.  That  a  Kaffir 
girl  should  prefer  a  young  man  to  an  old  suitor  to  the  point 
of  running  away  with  him  is  to  be  expected,  even  if  there  is 
nothing  more  than  a  merely  sensual  attachment.  The  ques- 
tion how  far  there  are  any  amorous  preferences  among  Kaffirs 
is  an  interesting  one.  From  the  fact  that  they  prefer  their 
cows  to  their  wives  in  moments  of  danger,  we  infer  that 
though  they  might  also  like  one  girl  better  than  another, 
such  preference  would  be  apt  to  prove  rather  weak  ;  and  this 
inference  is  borne  out  by  some  remarks  of  the  German  mis- 
sionary Alberti  which  I  will  translate  : 

"  The  sentiment  of  tender  and  chaste  love  is  as  unknown 
to  the  Kaffir  as  that  respect  which  is  founded  on  agreement 
and  moral  worth.  The  need  of  mutual  aid  in  domestic  life, 
combined  with  the  natural  instinct  for  the  propagation  of 
the  species,  alone  seem  to  occasion  a  union  of  young  men 
and  women  which  afterward  gains  permanence  through  ha- 
bitual intercourse  and  a  community  of  interests." 

"  It  is  true  that  the  young  man  commonly  seeks  to  gain 
the  favor  of  the  girl  he  likes  before  he  applies  to  her  parents, 
in  which  case,  if  his  suit  is  accepted,  the  supreme  favor  is  at 
once  granted  him  by  the  girl  ;  but  inasmuch  as  he  does  not 
need  her  good  will  necessarily,  the  parental  consent  being 
sufficient  to  secure  possession  of  her,  he  shows  little  zeal, 
and  his  peace  of  mind  is  not  in  the  least  disturbed  by  a  pos- 
sible refusal.  Altogether,  he  is  much  less  solicitous  about 
gaining  her  predilection  than  about  getting  her  for  the  low- 
est possible  price." 

Alberti  was  evidently  a  thinker  as  well  as  a  careful  observ- 
er. His  lucid  remarks  gives  us  a  deep  insight  into  primitive 


380  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN    LOVE 

conditions  when  love  had  hardly  yet  begun  to  germinate. 
What  a  worldwide  difference  between  this  languid  Kaffir 
wooer,  hardly  caring  whether  he  gets  this  girl  or  another, 
and  the  modern  lover  who  thinks  life  not  worth  living,  un- 
less he  can  gain  the  love  of  his  chosen  one.  In  all  the  lit- 
erature on  the  subject,  I  have  been  able  to  find  only  one  case 
of  stubborn  preference  among  Kaffirs.  Neuhaus  knew  a 
young  man  who  refused  for  two  years  to  marry  the  girl 
chosen  for  him  by  his  father,  and  finally  succeeded  in  having 
his  way  with  another  girl  whom  he  preferred.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  strong  aversion  is  more  frequently  manifested  than 
decided  preference,  especially  in  the  case  of  girls  who  are 
compelled  to  marry  old  men.  Neuhaus1  saw  a  Zulu  giil 
whose  hands  had  been  nearly  burned  off  by  her  tormentors  ; 
he  knew  of  two  girls  who  committed  suicide,  one  just  before, 
the  other  just  after,  an  enforced  marriage.  Grout  (167) 
speaks  of  the  "various  kinds  of  torture  resorted  to  by  the 
father  and  friends  of  a  girl  to  compel  her  to  marry  contrary 
to  her  choice."  One  girl,  who  had  fled  to  his  house  for  ref- 
uge, told  him  repeatedly  that  if  delivered  into  the  hands  of 
her  tormentors  "  she  wouloj.  be  cruelly  beaten  as  soon  as  they 
were  out  of  sight  and  be  subjected  to  every  possible  abuse, 
till  she  should  comply  with  the  wishes  of  her  proprietor." 


ZULU   GIRLS   NOT   COY 

Where  men  are  so  deficient  in  sentiment  and  manly  in- 
stincts that  one  young  woman  seems  to  them  about  as  good 
as  another,  it  is  hardly  strange  that  the  women  too  should 
lack  those  qualities  of  delicacy,  gentleness,  and  modesty 
which  make  the  weaker  sex  adorable.  The  description  of 
the  bloody  duels  often  fought  by  Kaffir  women  given  by  the 
British  missionary  Beste  (Ploss,  IT.,  421)  indicates  a  decided- 
ly Amazonian  disposition.  But  the  most  suggestive  trait  of 
Kaffir  women  is  the  lack  of  feminine  coyness  in  their  matri- 
monial preliminaries.  According  to  Gardiner  (97),  "  it  is 
not  regarded  as  a  matter  either  of  etiquette  or  of  delicacy 

»  Vid.  Mantegazza,  Geschlechtsverhaltnixse  des  Menschen,  213. 


CHARMS   AND   POEMS  381 

from  which  side  the  proposal  of  marriage  may  proceed — the 
overture  is  as  often  made  by  the  women  as  the  men." 
"Courtship,"  says  Shooter  (50),  "  does  not  always  begin  with 
the  men."  Sometimes  the  girl's  father  proposes  for  her  ; 
and  when  a  young  woman  does  not  receive  an  early  proposal, 
her  father  or  brother  go  from  kraal  to  kraal  and  offer  her 
till  a  bidder  is  found.  Callaway  (60)  relates  that  when  a 
young  Zulu  woman  is  ready  to  be  married  she  goes  to  the 
kraal  of  the  bridegroom,  to  stand  there.  She  remains  with- 
out speaking,  but  they  understand  her.  If  they  "  acknowl- 
edge "  her,  a  goat  is  killed  and  she  is  entertained.  If  they 
do  not  like  her,  they  give  her  a  burning  piece  of  firewood,  to 
intimate  that  there  is  no  fire  in  that  kraal  to  warm  herself, 
by  ;  she  must  go  and  kindle  a  fire  for  herself. l 

CHARMS   AND   POEMS 

Though  in  all  this  there  is  considerable  romance,  there  is 
no  evidence  of  romantic  love.  But  how  about  love-charms, 
poems,  and  stories?  According  to  Grout  (171),  love-charms 
are  not  unknown  in  Zululand.  They  are  made  of  certain 
herbs  or  barks,  reduced  to  a  powder,  and  sent  by  the  hand  of 
some  unsuspected  friend  to  be  given  in  a  pinch  of  snuff,  do- 
posited  in  the  dress,  or  sprinkled  upon  the  person  of  the 
party  whose  favor  is  to  be  won.  But  love-powders  argue  a 
very  materialistic  way  of  regarding  love  and  tell  us  nothing 
about  sentiments.  A  hint  at  something  more  poetic  is  given 
by  the  Rev.  J.  Tyler  (61),  who  relates  that  flowers  are  often  seen 
on  Zulu  heads,  and  that  one  of  them,  the  ' '  love-making  posy," 
is  said  to  foster  "love."  Unfortunately  that  is  all  the  infor- 
mation he  gives  us  on  this  particular  point,  and  the  further 
details  supplied  by  him  (120-22)  dash  all  hopes  of  finding 
traces  of  sentiment.  The  husband  "  eats  alone,"  and  when 

1  From  an  article  in  the  Humanitarian,  March,  1897,  it  appears  that  this 
"  leap-year  "  custom  still  prevails  among  Zulus ;  but  the  dawn  of  civilization 
has  introduced  a  modification  to  the  effect  that  when  the  girl  is  refused,  a  pres- 
ent is  usually  given  her  "  to  ease  her  feelings."  At  least  that  is  the  way  Miss 
Colenfio  puts  it.  Wood  (80)  relates  a  story  of  a  Kaffir  girl  who  persistently 
wooed  a  younif  chief  who  did  not  want  her ;  she  had  to  be  removed  by  force  and 
even  beaten,  but  kept  returning  until,  to  save  further  bother,  the  chief  bought 
her. 


382  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

the  wife  brings  him  a  drink  of  home-made  beer  "  she  must 
first  sip  to  show  there  is  no  *  death  in  the  pot/  "  While  he 
guzzles  beer,  loafs,  smokes,  and  gossips,  she  has  to  do  all  the 
work  at  home  as  well  as  in  the  field,  carrying  her  child  on 
her  back  and  returning  in  the  evening  with  a  bundle  of  fire- 
wood on  her  head.  "In  the  winter  the  natives  assemble 
almost  daily  for  drinking  and  dancing,  and  these  orgies  are 
accompanied  by  the  vilest  obscenities  and  evil  practices/' 

As  regards  poems  Wallaschek  remarks  (6)  that  "  the  Kaf- 
fir in  his  poetry  only  recognizes  a  threefold  subject :  war, 
cattle,  and  excessive  adulation  of  his  ruler."  One  Kaffir  love- 
poem,  or  rather  marriage-poem,  I  have  been  able  to  find 
(Shooter,  236),  and  it  is  delightfully  characteristic  : 

We  tell  you  to  dig  well, 
Come,  girl  of  ours, 
Bring  food  and  eat  it ; 
Fetch  fire-wood 
And  don't  be  lazy. 


A   KAFFIR   LOVE-STORY 

Among  the  twenty-one  tales  collected  in  Theal's  Kaffir  Folk 
Lore  there  is  one  which  approximates  what  we  call  a  love- 
story.  As  it  takes  up  six  pages  of  his  book  it  cannot  be 
quoted  entire,  but  in  the  following  condensed  version  I  have 
retained  every  detail  that  is  pertinent  to  our  inquiry.  It  is 
entitled  The  Story  of  Mbulukazi. 

There  was  once  a  man  who  had  two  wives ;  one  of  them 
had  no  children,  wherefore  he  did  not  love  her.  The  other 
one  had  one  daughter,  who  was  very  black,  and  several  chil- 
dren besides,  but  they  were  all  crows.  The  barren  wife  was 
very  downcast  and  often  wept  all  day. 

One  day  two  doves  perching  near  her  asked  why  she  cried. 
When  they  had  heard  her  story  they  told  her  to  bring  two 
earthen  jars.  Then  they  scratched  her  knees  until  the  blood 
flowed,  and  put  it  into  the  jars.  Every  day  they  came  and 
told  her  to  look  in  the  jars,  till  one  day  she  found  in  them 
two  beautiful  children,  a  boy  and  a  girl.  They  grew  up  in 
her  hut,  for  she  lived  apart  from  her  husband,  and  he  knew 
nothing  of  their  existence. 


A   KAFFIR   LOVE-STORY  383 

When  they  were  big,  they  went  to  the  river  one  day  to 
fetch  water.  On  the  way  they  met  some  yonng  men,  among 
whom  was  Broad  Breast,  a  chiefs  son  wlio  was  looking  for  a 
pretty  girl  to  be  his  wife.  The  men  asked  for  a  drink  and 
the  boy  gave  them  all  some  water,  but  the  young  chief  would 
take  it  only  from  the  girl.  He  was  very  much  smitten  with 
her  beauty,  and  watched  her  to  see  where  she  lived.  He  then 
went  home  to  his  father  and  asked  for  cattle  with  which  to 
marry  her.  The  chief,  being  rich,  gave  him  many  fine  cattle, 
and  with  these  the  young  man  went  to  the  husband  of  the 

§hi's  mother  and  said  :  "I  want  to  marry  your  daughter." 
o  the  girl  who  was  very  black  was  told  to  come,  but  the 
young  chief  said  :  "That  is  not  the  one  I  want;  the  one  f 
saw  was  lighter  in  color  and  much  prettier."  The  father  re- 
plied :  "  I  have  no  other  children  but  crows." 

But  Broad  Breast  persisted,  and  finally  the  servant-girl  told 
the  father  about  the  other  daughter.  In  the  evening  he  went 
to  his  neglected  wife's  hut  and  to  his  great  joy  saw  the  boy 
and  his  sister.  He  remained  all  night  and  it  was  agreed  that 
the  young  chief  should  have  the  girl.  When  Broad  Breast 
saw  her  he  said  :  i '  This  is  the  girl  I  meant."  So  he  gave  the 
cattle  to  the  father  and  married  the  girl,  whose  name  was 
Mbulukazi. 

To  appease  the  jealousy  of  the  very  black  girl's  mother  he 
also  married  that  girl,  and  each  of  them  received  from  her 
father  an  ox,  with  which  they  went  to  their  new  home.  But 
the  young  chief  did  not  care  for  the  very  black  girl  and  gave 
her  an  old  rickety  hut  to  live  in  while  Mbulukazi  had  a  very 
nice  new  house.  This  made  the  other  girl  jealous,  and  she 
plotted  revenge,  which  she  carried  out  one  day  by  pushing 
her  rival  over  the  edge  of  a  rock,  so  that  she  fell  into  the 
river  and  was  drowned.  The  corpse  was,  however,  found  by 
her  favorite  ox,  who  licked  her  till  her  life  came  back,  and 
as  soon  as  she  was  strong  once  more  she  told  what  had 
happened. 

Whom,  the  young  chief  heard  the  story  he  was  angry  with 
the  dark  wife  and  said  to  her  :  "  Go  home  to  your  father ;  I 
never  wanted  you  at  all ;  it  was  your  mother  who  brought 
you  to  me."  So  she  had  to  go  away  in  sorrow  and  Mbulukazi 
remained  the  great  wife  of  the  chief. 

In  this  interesting  story  there  are  two  suspicious  details. 
Theal  says  he  has  taken  care  in  his  collection  not  to  give 
a  single  sentence  that  did  riot  come  from  native  sources.  He 
calls  attention,  however,  to  the  fact  that  tens  of  thousands  of 


384  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN    LOVE 

Kaffirs  have  adopted  the  religion  of  Europeans  and  have  ac- 
cepted ideas  from  their  teachers,  wherefore  "  it  will  surprise 
no  one  to  learn  that  these  talcs  are  already  undergoing  great 
changes  among  a  very  large  section  of  the  natives  on  the  bor- 
der." I  suspect  that  the  touch  of  sentiment  in  the  phice 
where  the  young  chief  will  accept  a  drink  from  the  girl's 
hand  alone  is  such  a  case  of  European  influence,  and  so,  in 
all  probability  is  the  preference  for  a  light  complexion  implied 
in  the  tale  ;  for  Shooter  (p.  1)  tells  us  expressly  that  to  be 
told  that  he  is  light-colored  "  would  be  esteemed  a  very  poor 
compliment  by  a  Kaffir." 

The  following  passage,  which  occurs  in  another  of  TheaFs 
stories  (107),  shows  how  unceremonious  Kaffir  "  courtship  "  is 
in  relation  to  the  girl's  wishes. 

ff  Hlakanyana  met  a  girl  herding  some  goats. 

"He  said  :  'Where  are  the  boys  of  your  village,  that  the 
goats  are  herded  by  a  girl  ? ' 

"  The  girl  answered  :  '  There  are  no  boys  in  the  village/ 

"  He  went  to  the  father  of  the  girl  and  said  :  '  You  must 
give  me  your  daughter  to  be  my  concubine,  and  I- will  herd 
the  goats/ 

"  The  father  of  the  girl  agreed  to  that.  Then  Hlakanyana 
went  with  the  goats,  and  every  day  he  killed  one  and  ate  it 
till  all  were  done." 

LOWER   THAN    BEASTS 

If  we  now  leave  the  degraded  and  licentious  Kaffirs,  going 
northward  in  Eastern  Africa,  into  the  region  of  the  lakes — 
Nyassa,  Victoria  Nyanza  and  Albert  Nyanza — embracing 
British  Central,  German  East,  and  British  East  Africa,  we  are 
doomed  to  disappointment  if  we  expect  to  find  conditions 
more  favorable  to  the  growth  of  refined  romantic  or  con- 
jugal love.  We  shall  not  only  discover  no  evidence  of  what 
is  vaguely  called  Platonic  love,  but  we  shall  find  men  ignor- 
ing even  Plato's  injunction  (Laws,  VIII. ,  840)  that  they 
should  not  be  lower  than  beasts,  which  do  not  mate  till  they 
have  reached  the  age  of  maturity.  H.  II.  Johnston,  in  his 
recent  work  on  British  Central  Africa,  gives  some  startling 
revelations  of  aboriginal  depravity.  As  these  regions  have 


LOWER   THAN   BEASTS  385 

been  known  a  few  years  only,  the  universality  of  this  de- 
pravity disproves  most  emphatically  the  ridiculous  notion 
that  savages  are  naturally  pure  in  their  conduct  and  owe 
their  degradation  to  intercourse  with  corrupt  white  men. 
Johnston  (409)  says  : 

"  A  medical  missionary  who  was  at  work  for  some  time  on 
the  west  coast  of  Lake  Nyassa  gave  me  information  regarding 
the  depravity  prevalent  among  the  young  boys  in  the  Atonga 
tribe  of  a  character  not  even  to  be  described  in  obscure  Latin. 
These  statements  might  be  applied  with  almost  equal  exacti- 
tude to  boys  and  girls  in  many  other  parts  of  Africa.  As 
regards  the  little  girls,  over  nearly  the  whole  of  British  Cen- 
tral Africa,  chastity  before  puberty  is  an  unknown  condi- 
tion. .  .  .  Before  a  girl  becomes  a  woman  (that  is  to  say, 
before  she  is  able  to  conceive),  it  is  a  matter  of  absolute  in- 
difference what  she  does,  and  scarcely  any  girl  remains  a  vir- 
gin after  about1  five  years  of  age." 

Girls  are  often  betrothed  at  birth,  or  even  before,  and 
when  four  or  five  years  old  are  placed  at  the  mercy  of  the  de- 
graded husbands.  Capture  is  another  method  of  getting  a 
wife,  and  Johnston's  description  of  this  custom  indicates 
that  individual  preference  is  as  weak  as  we  have  found  it 
among  Kaffirs  : 

"  The  women  as  a  rule  make  no  very  great  resistance  on 
these  occasions.  It  is  almost  like  playing  a  game.  A 
woman  is  surprised  as  she  goes  to  get  water  at  the  stream,  or 
when  she  is  on  her  way  to  or  from^the  plantation.  The  man 
has  only  got  to  show  her  she  is  cornered  and  that  escape  is  not 
easy  or  pleasant  and  she  submits  to  be  carried  off.  Of  course 
there  are  cases  where  the  woman  takes  the  first  opportunity 
of  running  back  to  her  first  husband  if  her  captor  treats 
her  badly,  and  again  she  may  be  really  attached  to  her  first 
husband  and  make  every  effort  to  return  to  him  for  that  rea- 
son. But  as  a  general  rule  they  seem  to  accept  very  cheer- 
fully these  abrupt  changes  in  their  matrimonial  existence." 

In  a  footnote  he  adds  :  "  The  Rev.  Duff  Macdonald,  a 
competent  authority  on  Yao  manners  and  customs,  says  in 
his  book  Africana  :  *  1  was  told  .  .  .  that  a  native 
man  would  not  pass  a  solitary  woman,  and  that  her  refusal  of 


386  SPECIMENS   OF  AFRICAN   LOVE 

him  would  be  so  contrary  to  custom  that  he  might  kill  her.' 
Of  course  this  would  apply  only  to  females  that  are  not  en- 
gaged." 

COLONIES   OF   FREE   LOVERS 

Of  the  Taveita  forest  region  Johnston  says  :  "  After  mar- 
riage the  greatest  laxity  of  manners  is  allowed  among  the 
women,  who  often  court  their  lovers  under  their  husband's 
gaze  ;  provided  the  lover  pays,  no  objection  is  raised  to  his 
addresses."  And  regarding  the  Masai  (415) :  "  The  Masai 
men  rarely  marry  until  they  are  twenty-five  nor  the  women 
until  twenty.  But  both  sexes,  avant  de  sc  ranger,  lead  a 
very  dissolute  life  before  marriage,  the  young  warriors  and 
unmarried  girls  living  together  in  free  love."  The  fullest 
account  of  the  Masai  and  their  neighbors  we  owe  to  Thomson. 
With  the  M-teita  marriage  is  entirely  a  question  of  cows. 
"  There  is  a  very  great  disproportion  between  the  sexes,  the 
female  predominating  greatly,  and  yet  very  few  of  the  young 
men  are  able  to  marry  for  want  of  the  proper  number  of  cows 
— a  state  of  affairs  which  not  unfrequently  leads  to  marriage 
with  sisters,  though  this  practice  is  highly  reprobated."  Of 
the  Wa-taveta,  Thomson  says  (113)  :  "Conjugal  fidelity  is 
unknown,  and  certainly  not  expected  on  either  side ;  they 
might  almost  be  described  as  colonies  of  free  lovers."  As  for 
life  among  the  Masai  warriors,  he  says  (431)  that  it 

"  was  promiscuous  in  a  remarkable  degree.  They  may  in- 
deed be  proclaimed  as  a  colony  of  free  lovers.  Curiously 
enough  the  sweetheart  system  was  largely  in  vogue  ;  though 
no  one  confined  his  or  her  attentions  to  one  only.  Each  girl 
in  fact  had  several  sweethearts,  and  what  is  still  stranger, 
this  seemed  to  give  rise  to  no  jealousies.  The  most  perfect 
equality  prevailed  between  the  Ditto  and  Elmoran,  and  in 
their  savage  circumstances  it  was  really  pleasant  to  see  how 
common  it  was  for  a  young  girl  to  wander  about  the  camp 
with  her  arm  round  the  waist  of  a  stalwart  warrior."  l 

1  Ignorant  sentimentalists  who  have  often  argued  that  the  absence  of  il- 
legitimate offspring  argues  moral  purity  will  do  well  to  ponder  what  Thomson 
says  on  page  580,  and  compare  with  it  the  remarks  of  the  Rev.  J.  Macdonald, 
who  lived  twelve  years  among  the  tribes  between  Cape  Colony  and  Natal,  re- 
garding their  use  of  herbs.  (Journal  Anthrop.  Soc.,  XIX.,  264.)  See  also 
Johnston  (413). 


A  LESSON  IN   GALLANTRY  387 


A  LESSON   IN  GALLANTRY 

Crossing  the  waters  of  the  Victoria  Nyanza  we  come  to 
Uganda,  a  region  which  has  been  entertainingly  described  by 
Speke.  One  day,  he  tells  us  (379),  he  was  crossing  a  swamp 
with  the  king  and  his  wives  : 

"  The  bridge  was  broken,  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  and  the 
logs  which  composed  it,  lying  concealed  beneath  the  water, 
were  toed  successively  by  the  leading  men,  that  those  who  fol- 
lowed should  not  be  tripped  up  by  them.  This  favor  the 
King  did  for  me,  and  I  in  return  for  the  women  behind  ; 
they  had  never  been  favored  in  their  lives  with  such  gallantry 
and  therefore  could  not  refrain  from  laughing."  He  after- 
ward helped  the  girls  over  a  brook.  The  king  noticed  it, 
but  instead  of  upbraiding  me,  passed  it  off  as  a  joke,  and  run- 
ning up  to  the  Kamraviona,  gave  him  a  poke  in  the  ribs 
and  whispered  what  he  had  seen^  as  if -it  had  been  a  secret. 
'  Woh,  woh  ! '  says  the  Kamraviona,  '  what  wonders  will  hap- 
pen next  ? ' ' 

There  is  perhaps  no  part  of  Africa  where  such  an  act  of 
gallantry  would  not  have  been  laughed  at  as  an  absurd  prank. 
In  Eastern  Central  Africa  "  when  a  woman  meets  any  man 
on  the  path,  the  etiquette  is  for  her  to  go  off  the  path,  to 
kneel,  and  clasp  her  hands  to  the  ( lords  of  creation '  as  they 
pass.  Even  if  a  female  possesses  male  slaves  of  her  own  she 
observes  the  custom  when  she  meets  them  on  the  public  high- 
way. A  woman  always  kneels  when  she  has  occasion  to  talk 
to  a  man  "  (Macdonald,  I.,  129).  "  It  is  interesting  to  meet 
a  couple  returning  from  a  journey  for  firewood,"  says  the 
same  writer  (137).  "The  man  goes  first,  carrying  his  gun, 
bow  and  arrows,  while  the  woman  carries  the  invariable  bun- 
dle of  firewood  on  her  head."  He  used  to  amuse  such  parties 
by  taking  the  wife's  load  and  putting  it  on  the  husband,  tell- 
ing him,  *  This  is  the  custom  in  our  country.'"  The  wife 
has  to  do  not  only  all  the  domestic  but  all  the  hard  field  work, 
and  the  only  thing  the  lazy  husband  does  in  return  is  to  mend 
her  clothes.  That  constitutes  her  "  rights  ; "  neglect  of  it  is  a 
cause  for  divorce  !  Burton  notes  the  absence  of  chivalrous 
ideas  among  the  Somals  (F.  F.,  122),  adding  that  "  on  first 


388  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN    LOVE 

entering  the  nuptial  hut,  the  bridegroom  draws  forth  his 
horsewhip  and  inflicts  memorable  chastisement  upon  the  fair 
person  of  his  bride,  with  the  view  of  taming  any  lurking  pro- 
pensity to  shrewishness."  Among  the  natives  of  Massua,  ou 
the  eighth  of  the  month  of  Ashur,  "  boys  are  allowed,"  says 
Munzinger,  "  to  mercilessly  whip  any  girl  they  may  meet — 
a  liberty  of  which  they  make  use  in  anything  but  a  senti- 
mental way.  As  the  girls  naturally  hide  themselves  in  their 
houses  on  this  day,  the  boys  disguise  themselves  as  beggars, 
or  use  some  other  ruse  to  get  them  out."  Adults  sometimes 
take  part  in  this  gallant  sport.  But  let  us  return  to  Uganda. 

The  Queen  of  Uganda  offered  Speke  the  choice  between 
two  of  her  daughters  as  a  wife.  The  girls  were  brought  and 
made  to  squat  in  front  of  him.  They  had  never  seen  him. 
"  The  elder,  who  was  in  the  prime  of  youth  and  beauty,  very 
large  of  limb,  dark  in  color,  cried  considerably  ;  whilst  the 
younger  one  .  .  .  laughed  as  if  she  thought  the  change 
in  her  destiny  very  good  fun."  He  had  been  advised  that 
when  the  marriage  came  off  he  was  to  chain  the  girl  two  or 
three  days,  unfii  she  became  used  to  him,  else,  from  mere 
fright,  she  mig*t  run  away. 

A  high  official  also  bestowed  on  him  a  favor  which  throws 
light  on  the  treatment  of  Uganda  women.  He  had  his  women 
come  in,  made  them  strip  to  the  waist,  and  asked  Speke  what 
he  thought  of  them.  He  assured  him  he  had  paid  him  an 
unusual  compliment,  the  Uganda  men  being  very  jealous  of 
one  another,  so  much  so  tha/t  anyone  would  be  killed  if  found 
staring  upon  a  woman,  even  in  the  highways.  Speke  asked 
him  what  use  he  had  for  so  many  women,  to  which  he  replied, 
"  None  whatever  ;  the  King  gives  them  to  us  to  keep  up  our 
rank,  sometimes  as  many  as  one  hundred  together,  and  we 
either  turn  them  into  wives,  or  make  servants  of  them,  as  we 
please." 

NOT   A   PARTICLE   OF   ROMANCE 

The  northeastern  boundary  of  Uganda  is  formed  by  the 
waters  of  the  lake  whose  name  Sir  Samuel  Baker  chose  for 
the  title  of- one  of  his  fascinating  books  on  African  travel,  the 


NO   LOVE   AMONG    NEGROES  389 

Albert  N'yanza.  Baker  was  a  keen  observer  and  he  had 
abundant  experience  on  which  to  base  the  following  conclu- 
sions (148) : 

"There  is  no  such  thing  as  love  in  these  countries,  the 
feeling  is  not  understood,  nor  does  it  exist  in  the  shape  in 
which  we  understand  it.  Everything  is  practical,  without  a 
particle  of  romance.  Women  are  so  far  appreciated  as  they 
are  valuable  animals.  They  grind  the  corn,  fetch  the  water, 
gather  firewood,  cement  the  floors,  cook  the  food,  and  propa- 
gate the  race  ;  but  they  are  mere  servants,  and  as  such  are 
valuable.  ...  A  savage  holds  to  his  cows  and  to  his 
women,  but  especially  to  his  cows.  In  a  razzia  fight  he  will 
seldom  stand  for  the  sake  of  his  wives,  but  when  he  does  fight 
it  is  to  save  his  cattle." 

The  sentimentalist's  heart  will  throb  with  a  nutter  of  hope 
when  he  reads  in  the  same  book  (240)  that  among  the  La- 
tookas  it  is  considered  a  disgrace  to  kill  a  woman  in  war. 
Have  these  men  that  respect  for  women  which  makes  roman- 
tic love  possible  ?  Alas,  no !  They  spare  them  because 
women  are  scarce  and  have  a  money  value,  a  female  being 
worth  from  five  to  ten  cows,  according  to  her  age  and  appear- 
ance. It  would  therefore  be  a  waste  of  money  to  kill  them. 

I  may  as  well  add  here  what  Baker  says  elsewhere  (Ismailia, 
501)  by  way  of  explaining  why  there  is  no  insanity  in  Central 
Africa :  there  are  "  no  hearts  to  break  with  overwhelming 
love."  Where  coarseness  is  bliss,  'twere  folly  to  be  refined. 


NO   LOVE   AMONG   NEGROES 

Let  us  now  cross  Central  Africa  into  the  Congo  region  on 
the  Western  side,  returning  afterward  to  the  East  for  a  bird's- 
eye  view  of  the  Abyssinians,  the  Somali,  and  their  neighbors. 

In  his  book  Angola  and  the  River  Congo  (133-34)  Monteiro 
says  that  negroes  show  less  tenderness  and  love  than  some 

animals  : 

--. 

"  In  all  the  long  years  I  have  been  in  Africa  I  have  never 
seen  a  negro  manifest  the  least  tenderness  for  or  to  a  negress. 
.  .  .  I  have  never  seen  a  negro  put  his  arm  round  a 
woman's  waist  or  give  or  receive  any  caress  whatever  that 


390  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

would  indicate  the  slightest  loving  regard  or  affection  on 
either  side.  They  have  no  words  or  expressions  in  their  lan- 
guage indicative  of  affection  or  love.  Their  passion  is  purely 
of  an  animal  description,  unaccompanied  by  the  least  sympa- 
thetic affections  of  love  or  endearment."  l 

In  other  words,  these  negroes  not  only  do  not  show  any 
tenderness,  affection,  sympathy,  in  their  sexual  relations,  they 
are  too  coarse  even  to  appreciate  the  more  subtle  manifesta- 
tions of  sensual  passion  which  we  call  caresses.  Jealousy,  too, 
Monteiro  says,  hardly  exists.  In  case  of  adultery  "  the  fine 
is  generally  a  pig,  and  rum  or  other  drink,  with  which  a 
feast  is  celebrated  by  all  parties.  The  woman  is  not  pun- 
ished in  any  way,  nor  does  any  disgrace  attach  to  her  con- 
duct/' As  a  matter  of  course,  where  all  these  sentiments  are 
lacking,  admiration  of  personal  beauty  cannot  exist.  "  From 
their  utter  want  of  love  and  appreciation  of  female  beauty  or 
charms  they  are  quite  satisfied  and  content  with  any  woman 
possessing  even  the  greatest  amount  of  hideous  ugliness  with 
which  nature  has  so  bountifully  provided  them/' 


A   QUEER   STORY 

Thus  we  find  the  African  mind  differing  from  ours  as 
widely  as  a  picture  seen  directly  with  the  eyes  differs  from 
one  reflected  in  a  concave  mirror.  This  is  vividly  illustrated 
by  a  quaint  story  recorded  in  the  Folk  Tales  of  Angola 
(Memoirs  of  Amer.  Folk  Lore  Soc.,  Vol.  I.,  1894,  235-39),  of 
which  the  following  is  a  condensed  version  : 

An  elderly  man  had  an  only  child,  a  daughter.  This 
daughter,  a  number  of  men  wanted  her.  But  whenever  a 
suitor  came,  her  father  demanded  of  him  a  living  deer  ;  and 

1  To  what  almost  incredible  lengths  sentimental  defenders  of  savages  will 
go,  may  be  seen  in  an  editorial  article  with  which  the  London  Daily  News  of  Aug- 
ust 4,  1887,  honored  my  first  book.  I  was  informed  therein  that  "savages  are 
not  strangers  to  love  in  the  most  delicate  and  noble  form  of  the  passion.  .  .  . 
The  wrong  conclusion  must  not  be  drawn  from  Mont  iro's  remark,  1 1  have  never 
seen  a  negro  put  his  arm  around  a  negro's  waist.'  It  is  the  uneducated  classes 
who  may  be  seen  to  exhibit  in  the  parks  those  harmless  endearments  which 
negroes  have  too  much  good  taste  to  practise  before  the  public."  To  one  who 
knows  the  African  savage  as  he  is,  such  an  assertion  is  worth  a  whole  volume  of 
Punch. 


A   QUEER   STORY  391 

then  they  all  gave  up,  saying,  "  The  living  deer,  we  cannot 
get  it." 

One  day  two  men  came,  each  asking  for  the  daughter. 
The  father  answered  as  usual,  "  He  who  brings  me  the  living 
deer  ;  the  same,  I  will  give  him  my  daughter." 

The  two  men  made  up  their  minds  to  hunt  for  the  living 
deer  in  the  forest.  They  came  across  one  and  pursued  it  ; 
but  one  of  them  soon  got  tired  and  said  to  himself  :  "  That 
woman  will  destroy  my  life.  Shall  I  suffer  distress  because 
of  a  woman  ?  If  I  bring  her  home,  if  she  dies,  would  I  seek 
another  ?  I  will  not  run  again  to  catch  a  living  deer.  I 
never  saw  it,  that  a  girl  was  wooed  with  a  living  deer."  And 
he  gave  up  the  chase. 

The  other  man  persevered  and  caught  the  deer.  When  he 
approached  with  it,  his  companion  said,  "  Friend,  the  deer, 
didst  thou  catch  it  indeed  ?"  Then  the  other  :  "I  caught 
it.  The  girl  delights  me  much.  Rather  I  would  sleep  in 
forest,  than  to  fail  to  catch  it." 

Then  they  returned  to  the  father  and  brought  him  the 
deer.  But  the  father  called  four  old  men,  told  them  what 
had  happened,  and  asked  them  to  choose  a  son-in-law  for 
him  among  the  two  hunters.  Being  questioned  by  the  aged 
men,  the  successful  hunter  said :  "  My  comrade  pursued 
and  gave  up  ;  I,  your  daughter  charmed  me  much,,  even  to 
the  heart,  and  I  pursued  the  deer  till  it  gave  in.  ... 
My  comrade  he  came  only  to  accompany  me." 

Then  the  other  was  asked  why  he  gave  up  the  chase,  if  he 
wanted  the  girl,  and  he  replied  :  "  I  never  saw  that  they 
wooed  a  girl  with  a  deer.  .  .  .  When  I  saw  the  great 
running  I  said,  *  No,  that  woman  will  cost  my  life.  Women 
are  plentiful/  and  I  sat  down  to  await  my  comrade." 

Then  the  aged  men  :  "  Thou  who  gavest  up  catching  the 
deer,  thou  art  our  son-in-law.  This  gentleman  who  caught 
the  deer,  he  may  go  with  it ;  he  may  eat  it  or  he  may  sell  it, 
for  he  is  a  man  of  great  heart.  If  he  wants  to  kill  he  kills  at 
once  ;  he  does  not  listen  to  one  who  scolds  him,  or  gives  him 
advice.  Our  daughter,  if  we  gave  her  to  him,  and  she  did 
wrong,  when  he  would  beat  her  he  would  not  hear  (one)  who 
entreats  for  her.  We  do  not  want  him  ;  let  him  go.  This 
gentleman  who  gave  up  the  deer,  he  is  our  son-in-law  ;  be- 
cause, our  daughter,  when  she  does  wrong,  when  we  come  to 
pacify  him,  he  will  listen  to  us.  Although  he  were  in  great 
anger,  when  he  sees  us,  his  anger  will  cease.  He  is  our  good 
son-in-law,  whom  we  have  chosen." 


392  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN    LOVE 


SUICIDES 

According  to  Livingstone,  in  Angola  suicide  is  sometimes 
committed  by  a  girl  if  it  is  predicted  to  her  that  she  will 
never  have  any  children,  which  would  be  a  great  disgrace.  A 
writer  in  the  Globtis  (Vol.  69,  p.  358)  sums  up  the  observa- 
tions of  the  medical  missionary,  G.  Liengme,  on  suicides 
among  the  peoples  of  Africa.  The  most  frequent  cause 
is  a  family  quarrel.  Sometimes  a  girl  commits  suicide 
rather  than  marry  a  man  whom  she  detests,  "whereas 
on  the  other  hand  suicide  from  unhappy  love  seems  to  be 
unknown."  In  another  number  of  the  Globus  (70  :  100),  how- 
ever, I  find  mention  of  a  negro  who  killed  himself  because  he 
could  not  get  the  girl  he  wanted.  This,  of  course,  does  not 
of  itself  suffice  to  prove  the  existence  of  true  love,  for  we 
know  that  lust  may  be  as  maddening  and  as  obstinate  as  love 
itself ;  moreover,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  American 
Indians,  suicide  does  not  argue  strong  feelings,  but  a  weak  in- 
tellect. Savages  are  apt  to  kill  themselves,  as  we  shall  see,  on 
the  slightest  and  most  trivial  provocation. 


POETIC    LOVE   ON   THE    CONGO 

In  his  entertaining  book  on  the  Congo,  H.  H.  Johnston 
says  (423)  of  the  races  living  along  the  upper  part  of  that 
river  :  "  They  are  decidedly  amorous  in  disposition,  but  there 
is  a  certain  poetry  in  their  feelings  which  ennobles  their  love 
above  the  mere  sexual  lust  of  the  negro."  If  this  is  true,  it 
is  one  of  the  most  important  discoveries  ever  made  by  an 
African  explorer,  one  on  which  we  should  expect  the  author 
to  dwell  at  great  length.  What  does  he  tell  us  about  the 
Congo  tribes  ?  "  The  women/'  he  says  of  the  Ba-Kongo, 
"  have  little  regard  for  their  virtue,  either  before  or  after 
marriage,  and  but  for  the  jealousy  of  the  men  there  would  be 
promiscuous  intercourse  between  the  sexes."  These  women, 
he  says,  rate  it  as  especially  honorable  to  be  a  white  man's 
mistress  : 


POETIC   LOVE   ON   THE    CONGO  393 

"  Moreover,  though  the  men  evince  some  marital  jealousy 
among  themselves,  they  are  far  from  displaying  anything  but 
satisfaction  when  a  European  is  induced  to  accept  the  loan  of 
a  wife,  either  as  an  act  of  hospitality  or  in  consideration  of 
some  small  payment.  Unmarried  girls  they  are  more  chary 
of  offering,  as  their  value  in  the  market  is  greater ;  but  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  among  these  people  womanly  chastity 
is  unknown  and  a  woman's  honor  is  measured  by  the  price 
she  costs." 

These  remarks,  it  is  true,  refer  to  the  i^ower  Congo,  and  it 
is  only  of  the  upper  river  that  Johnston  predicates  the  poetic 
features  which  ennoble  love.  Stanley  Pool  being  accepted 
by  him  as  the  dividing  line,  we  may  there  perhaps  begin 
our  search  for  romantic  love.  One  day,  the  author  relates, 
rain  had  driven  him  to  a  hut  on  the  shore  of  the  Pool,  where 
there  was  a  family  with  two  marriageable  daughters.  The 
father 

"  was  most  anxious  I  should  become  his  son-in-law,  'moyen- 
nant '  several  '  longs '  of  cloth.  Seeing  my  hesitation,  he  mis- 
took it  for  scorn  and  hastened  to  point  out  the  manifold 
charms  of  his  girls,  whilst  these  damsels  waxed  hotly  indignant 
at  my  coldness.  Then  another  inspiration  seized  their  father 
— perhaps  I  liked  a  maturer  style  of  beauty,  and  his  wife,  by 
no  means  an  uncomely  person,  was  dragged  forward  while 
her  husband  explained  with  the  most  expressive  gestures,  put- 
ting his  outspread  hands  before  his  eyes  and  affecting  to  look 
another  way,  that,  again  with  the  simple  intermediary  of  a 
little  cloth,  he  would  remain  perfectly  unconscious  of  what- 
ever amatory  passages  might  occur  between  us." 

Evidently  the  poetry  of  love  had  not  drifted  down  as  far  as 
the  Pool.  Let  us  therefore  see  what  Johnston  has  to  say  of 
the  Upper  Congo  (423)  :  "  Husbands  are  fond  of  their  own 
wives,  as  ivell  as  of  those  of  other  people. "  "  Marriage  is  a  mere 
question  of  purchase,  and  is  attended  by  no  rejoicings  or  spe- 
cial ceremony.  A  man  procures  as  many  wives  as  possible, 
partly  because  they  labor  for  him  and  also  because  soon  after 
one  wife  becomes  with  child  she  leaves  him  for  two  or  three 
years  until  her  baby  is  weaned."  Apart  from  these  facts 
Johnston  gives  us  no  hint  as  to  what  he  understands  by  atfec- 


394  SPECIMENS   OF  AFRICAN   LOVE 

tion  except  what  the  following  sentence  allows  ns  to  infer 
(429)  :  "  The  attachment  between  these  dogs  and  their  African 
masters  is  deep  and  fully  reciprocated.  They  are  considered 
very  dainty  eating  by  the  natives,  and  are  indeed  such  a  lux- 
ury that  by  an  unwritten  law  only  the  superior  sex — the  men 
— are  allowed  to  partake  of  roasted  dog."  The  amusing 
italics  are  mine. 

If  Johnston  really  found  traces  of  poetic,  ennobling  love  in 
this  region,  surely  so  startling  a  novelty  in  West  Africa  would 
have  called  for  a  full  "  bill  of  particulars,"  which  would  have 
been  of  infinitely  greater  scientific  value  than  the  details  he 
gives  regarding  unchastity,  infidelity,  commercialism,  separa- 
tion from  wives  and  contempt  for  women,  which  are  so  com- 
mon throughout  the  continent  as  to  call  for  no  special  no- 
tice. Evidently  his  ideas  regarding  "poetic  love"  were  as 
hazy  as  those  of  some  other  writers  quoted  in  this  chapter, 
and  we  have  once  more  been  led  on  by  the  mirage  of  a  i '  false 
fact."1 

In  1891  the  Swedish  explorer  Westermarck  published  a  book 
describing  his  adventures  among  the  cannibal  tribes  of  the 
Upper  Congo.  I  have  not  seen  the  book,  but  the  Rev.  James 
Johnston,  in  summing  up  its  contents,  says  (193)  : 

"A  man  can  sell  wife  and  children  according  to  his 
own  depraved  pleasure.  Women  are  the  slave  drudges,  the 
men  spending  their  hours  in  eating,  drinking,  and  sleeping. 
Cannibalism  in  its  worst  features  prevails.  Young  women 
are  prized  as  special  delicacies,  particularly  girls'  ears  pre- 
pared in  palm  oil,  and,  in  order  to  make  the  flesh  more  pala- 
table, the  luckless  victims  are  -kept  in  water  up  to  their  necks 
for  three  or  four  days  before  they  are  slaughtered  and  served 
as  food." 

BLACK   LOVE   Itf    KAMERUN 

From  the  banks  of  the  Congo  to  Kamerun  is  not  a  very  far 
cry  as  distances  go  in  Africa.  Kamerun  is  under  the  German 
flag,  and  a  German  writer,  Hugo  Zoller,  has  described  life  in 
that  colony  with  the  eyes  of  a  shrewd  observer.  What  he  says 

1  Westermarck  (358),  as  usual,  accepts  Johnston's  statement  about  poetic  love 
on  the  Congo  as  gospel  truth,  without  examining  it  critically. 


BLACK   LOVE   IN    KAMERUN  395 

about  the  negro's  capacity  for  love  shows  deep  psychological 
insight  (III.,  68-70)  : 

"  Europeans  residing  in  Africa  who  have  married  a  negro 
woman  declare  unanimously  that  there  is  no  such  thing  there 
as  love  and  fidelity  in  the  European  sense.  It  happens  with 
infinitely  greater  frequency  that  a  European  falls  in  love  with 
his  black  companion  than  she  with  him  ;  or  rather  the  latter 
does  not  happen  at  all.  A  hundred  times  I  have  listened  to 
discussions  of  this  topic  in  many  different  places,  but  I  have 
never  heard  of  a  single  case  of  a  genuine  full-blooded  negress 
falling  in  love  with  a  white  man.  .  .  .  The  stupidest 
European  peasant  girl  is,  in  comparison  with  an  African  prin- 
cess, still  an  ideally  endowed  being." 

Zoller  adds  that  in  all  his  African  experiences-  he  never 
found  a  negress  of  whom  he  should  have  been  willing  to  as- 
sume that  she  would  sacrifice  herself  for  a  man  she  was  at- 
tached to.  On  another  page  he  says  : 

"  A  negro  woman  does  not  fall  in  love  in  the  same  sense  as 
a  European,  not  even  as  the  least  civilized  peasant  girl.  Love, 
in  our  sense  of  the  word,  is  a  product  of  our  culture  belong- 
ing to  a  higher  stage  in  the  development  of  latent  faculties 
than  the  negro  race  has  reached.  Not  only  is  the  negro  a 
stranger  to  the  diverse  intellectual  and  sentimental  qualities 
which  we  denote  by  the  name  of  love  :  nay,  even  in  a  purely 
bodily  sense  it  may  be  asserted  that  his  nervous  system  is  not 
only  less  sensitive,  but  less  well-developed.  The  negro  loves 
as  he  eats  and  drinks.  .  .  .  And  just  as  little  as  a  black 
epicure  have  I  ever  been  able  to  discover  a  negro  who  could 
rise  to  the  imaginative  phases  of  amorous  dalliance.  A  negro 
may  buy  dozens  upon  dozens  of  wives  without  ever 
being  drawn  by  an  overpowering  feeling  to  any  one  of  them. 
Love  is,  among  the  blacks,  as  much  a  matter  of  money  as  the 
palm  oil  or  ivory  trade.  The  black  man  buys  his  wife  when 
she  is  still  a  child  ;  when  she  reaches  the  age  at  which  our 
maidens  go  to  their  first  ball,  her  nervous  system,  which 
never  was  particularly  sensitive  anyway,  is  completely  blunted, 
so  that  she  takes  it  as  a  matter  of  course  to  be  sold  again  and 
again  as  a  piece  of  property.  One  hears  often  enough  of  a 
'  woman  palaver/  which  is  regarded  exactly  like  a  '  goat  pa- 
laver/ as  a  damage  to  property,  but  one  never,  positively  never, 
hears  of  a  love-affair.  The  negress  never  has  a  sweetheart, 


396  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

either  in  her  youngest  days  or  after  her  so-called  marriage. 
She  is  regarded,  and  regards  herself,  as  a  piece  of  property 
and  a  beast  of  burden/'' 


A    SLAVE    COAST    LOVE-STORY 

Travelling  a  short  distance  northwest  from  Kamerun  we 
reach  the  Slave  Coast  of  West  Africa,  to  which  A.  B.  Ellis  has 
devoted  two  interesting  books,  including  chapters  in  the  folk- 
lore of  the  Yoruba  and  Ewe-speaking  peoples  of  this  region. 
Among  the  tales  recorded  are  two  which  illustrate  African 
ideas  regarding  love.  I  copy  the  first  verbatim  from  Ellis's 
book  on  the  Yoruba  (269-70)  : 

"  There  was  a  young  maiden  named  Buje,  the  slender,  whom 
all  the  men  wanted.  The  rich  wanted  her,  but  she  refused. 
Chiefs  wanted  her,  and  she  refused.  The  King  wanted  her, 
and  she  still  refused. 

"  Tortoise  came  to  the  King  and  said  to  him,  '  She  whom 
you  all  want  and  cannot  get,  I  will  get.  I  will  have  her,  I/ 
And  the  King  said,  '  If  you  succeed  in  having  her,  I  will 
divide  my  palace  into  two  halves  and  will  give  you  one-half.' 

"  One  day  Buje,  the  slender,  took  an  earthen  pot  and  went 
to  fetch  water.  Tortoise,  seeing  this,  took  his  hoe,  and 
cleared  the  path  that  led  to  the  spring.  He  found  a  snake  in 
the  grass,  and  killed  it.  Then  he  put  the  snake  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  path. 

"  When  Buje,  the  slender,  had  filled  her  pot,  she  came  back. 
She  saw  the  snake  in  the  path,  and  called  out,  '  Hi  !  hi  ! 
Come  and  kill  this  snake/ 

"  Tortoise  ran  up  with  his  cutlass  in  his  hand.  He  struck 
at  the  snake  and  wounded  himself  in  the  leg. 

"Then  he  cried  out,  'Buje  the  slender,  has  killed  me.  I 
was  cutting  the  bush,  I  was  clearing  the  path  for  her.  She 
called  to  me  to  kill  the  snake,  but  I  have  wounded  myself  in 
the  leg.  0  Buje,  the  slender,  Buje,  the  slender,  take  me 
upon  your  back  and  hold  me  close/ 

"  He  cried  this  many  times,  and  at  last  Buje,  the  slender, 
took  Tortoise  and  put  him  on  her  back.  And  then  he  slipped 
his  legs  down  over  her  hips.  .  .  . 

"Next  day,  as  soon  as  it  was  light,  Tortoise  went  to  the  King. 
He  said,  '  Did  I  not  tell  you  I  should  have  Buje,  the  slender  ? 
Call  all  the  people  of  the  town  to  assemble  on  the  fifth  day, 
and  you  will  hear  what  I  have  to  say/ 


THE    MAIDEN   WHO   ALWAYS   REFUSED       397 

"  When  it  was  the  fifth  day,  the  King  sent  out  his  crier  to 
call  all  the  people  together.  The  people  came.  Tortoise 
cried  out,  '  Everybody  wanted  Buje,  the  slender,  and  Buje 
refused  everybody,  but  I  have  had  her/ 

"The  King  sent  a  messenger,  with  his  stick,  to  summon 
Buje,  the  slender.  When  she  came  the  King  said,  *  We  have 
heard  that  Tortoise  is  your  husband  ;  is  it  so  ?' 

"  Buje,  the  slender,  was  ashamed,  and  could  not  answer.  She 
covered  her  head  with  her  cloth,  and  ran  away  into  the  bush. 

"  And  there  she  was  changed  into  the  plant  called  Buje." 


THE    MAIDEN"   WHO    ALWAYS    REFUSED 

Robert  Hartmann  (480)  describes  the  Yoruba  people  as 
vivacious  and  intelligent.  But  the  details  given  by  Ellis  (154) 
regarding  the  peculiar  functions  of  bridesmaids,  and  the  as- 
sertion that  "  virginity  in  a  bride  is  only  of  paramount  im- 
portance when  the  girl  has  been  betrothed  in  childhood," 
explain  sufficiently  why  we  must  not  look  for  sentimental 
features  in  a  Yoruba  love-story.  The  most  noticeable  thing 
iu  the  above  tale  is  the  girl's  power  to  refuse  chiefs  and  even 
the  King.  In  Ellis's  book  on  the  Ewe-speaking  peoples  of 
the  Slave  Coast,  there  is  also  a  love-story  (271)  concerning  a 
"  Maiden  who  always  refused."  It  has  a  moral  which  seems 
to  indicate  masculine  disapproval  of  such  a  feminine  privi- 
lege. The  following  is  a  condensed  version  : 

There  was  a  beautiful  girl  whose  parents  were  rich.  Men 
came  to  marry  her,  but  she  always  said  "Not  yet."  Men 
continued  to  come,  but  she  said  "  My  shape  is  good,  my  skin 
is  good,  therefore  I  shall  stay  ; "  and  she  stayed. 

Now  the  leopard,  in  the  leopard's  place,  hears  this.  He 
turns  himself  to  resemble  man.  He  takes  a  musical  instru- 
ment in  his  hand  and  makes  himself  a  fine  young  man.  His 
shape  is  good.  Then  he  goes  to  the  parents  of  the  maiden 
and  says,  "  I  look  strong  and  manly,  but  I  do  not  look 
stronger  than  I  love."  Then  the  father  says,  "  Who  looks 
strong  takes  ;"  and  the  young  man  says,  "I  am  ready." 

The  young  man  comes  in  the  house.  His  shape  pleases  the 
young  girl.  They  give  him  to  eat  and  they  give  him  to  drink. 
Then  the  young  man  asks  the  maiden  if  she  is  ready  to  go, 
and  the  maiden  says  she  is  ready  to  go.  Her  parents  give  her 
two  female  slaves  to  take  along,  and  goats,  sheep,  and  fowls. 


398  SPECIMENS  OF  AFRICAN  LOVE 

Ere  long,  as  they  travel  along  the  road,  the  husband 
says,  "  I  am  hungry."  He  eats  the  fowls,  but  is  still  hungry  : 
he  eats  the  goats  and  sheep  and  is  hungry  still.  The  two 
slaves  next  fall  a  victim  to  his  voracity,  and  then  he  says,  "  I 
am  hungry." 

Then  the  wife  weeps  and  cries  aloud  and  throws  herself  on 
the  ground.  Immediately  the  leopard,  having  resumed  his 
own  shape,  makes  a  leap  toward  her.  But  there  is  a  hun- 
ter concealed  in  the  bush  ;  he  has  witnessed  the  scene  ;  he 
aims  his  gun  and  kills  the  leopard  on  the  leap.  Then  he  cuts 
off  his  tail  and  takes  the  young  woman  home. 

"  This  is  the  way  of  young  women,"  the  tale  concludes. 
"  The  young  men  come  to  ask  ;  the  young  women  meet  them, 
and  continue  to  refuse — again,  again,  again — and  so  the  wild 
animals  turn  themselves  into  men  and  carry  them  off." 

AFRICAN   STORY-BOOKS 

While  the  main  object  of  this  discussion  is  to  show  that 
Africans  are  incapable  of  feeling  sentimental  love,  I  have 
taken  the  greatest  pains  to  discover  such  traces  of  more  re- 
fined feelings  as  may  exist.  These  one  might  expect  to  find 
particularly  in  the  collections  of  African  tales  such  as  Calla- 
way's  Nursery  Tales  of  the  Zulus,  TheaPs  Kaffir  Folk  Lore, 
the  Folk  Lore  of  Angola,  Stanley's  My  Dark  Companions  and 
their  Stories,  Koelle's  African  Native  Literature,  Jacottet's 
Contes  Populalres  des  Bassoutos.  All  that  I  have  been  able  to 
find  in  these  books  and  others  bearing  on  our  topic  is  included 
in  this  chapter — and  how  very  little  it  is  !  Love,  even  of  the 
sensual  kind,  seems  to  be  almost  entirely  ignored  by  these 
dusky  story-tellers  in  favor  of  a  hundred  other  subjects — in 
striking  contrast  to  our  own  literature,  in  which  love  is  the 
ruling  passion.  I  have  before  me  another  interesting  collec- 
tion of  South  and  North  African  stories  and  fables — Bleek's 
Reinecke  Fuchs  in  Afrika.  Its  author  had  unusual  facilities 
for  collecting  them,  having  been  curator  of  Sir  G.  Grey's  li- 
brary at  Cape  Town,  which  includes  a  fine  collection  of  Af- 
rican manuscripts.  In  Bleek's  book  there  are  forty-four  South 
African,  chiefly  Hottentot,  fables  and  tales,  and  thirty-nine 
relating  to  North  Africans.  Yet  among  these  eighty-three 
tales  there  are  only  three  that  come  under  the  head  of  love- 


TAMBA  AND   THE   PRINCESS 

stories.  As  they  take  up  eight  pages,  I  can  give  only  a  con- 
densed version  of  them,  taking  care,  however,  to  omit  no  es- 
sential feature.1 

THE   FIVE   SUITORS 

Four  handsome  youths  tried  to  win  a  beautiful  girl  living 
in  the  same  town.  While  they  were  quarrelling  among  them- 
selves a  youth  came  from  another  town,  lifted  the  girl  on  his 
horse  and  galloped  away  with  her.  The  father  followed  in 
pursuit  on  his  camel,  entered  the  youth's  house,  and  brought 
back  the  girl. 

One  day  the  father  called  together  all  the  men  of  his  tribe. 
The  girl  stepped  among  them  and  said,  "  Whoever  of  you  can 
ride  on  my  father's  camel  without  falling  off,  may  have  me  as 
wife."  Dressed  in  their  best  finery,  the  young  men  tried, 
one  after  another,  but  were  all  thrown.  Among  them  sat 
the  stranger  youth,  wrapped  only  in  a  mat.  Turning  toward 
him  the  girl  said,  "  Let  the  stranger  make  a  trial."  The  men 
demurred,  but  the  stranger  got  on  the  camel,  rode  about  the 
party  three  times  safely,  and  when  he  passed  the  girl  for  the 
fourth  time  he  snatched  her  up  and  rode  away  with  her  hastily. 

Quickly  the  father  mounted  his  fleet  horse  and  followed 
the  fugitives.  He  gained  on  them  until  his  horse's  head 
touched  the  earners  tail.  At  that  moment  the  youth  reached 
his  home,  jumped  off  the  camel  and  carried  the  bride  into  the 
house.  He  closed  the  door  so  violently  that  one  foot  of  the 
pursuing  horse  caught  between  the  posts.  The  father  drew 
it  out  with  difficulty  and  returned  to  the  four  disappointed 
suitors. 

TAMBA   ANT)  THE   PRINCESS 

A  king  had  a  beautiful  daughter  and  many  desired  to 
marry  her.  But  all  failed,  because  none  could  answer  the 
King's  question:  "What  is  enclosed  in  my  amulet  ?"  Un- 
dismayed by  the  failure  of  men  of  wealth  and  rank,  Tamba, 

1  Bleek  credits  these  tales  to  Schon's  Grammar  of  the  Hausa  Language, 
Schlenker's  Collection  of  Temne  Traditions,  and  Kolle's  African  Native  Litera- 
ture, where  the  original  Bornu  text  may  be  found. 


400  SPECIMENS    OF    AFRICAN   LOVE 

who  lived  far  in  the  East  and  had  nothing  to  boast  of,  made 
up  his  mind  to  win  the  princess.  His  friends  laughed  at 
him  but  he  started  out  on  his  trip,  taking  with  him  some 
chickens,  a  goat,  rice,  rice-straw,  millet-seed,  and  palm-oil. 
He  met  in  succession  a  hungry  porcupine,  an  alligator,  a 
horned  viper,  and  some  ants,  of  all  of  whom  he  made  friends 
by  feeding  them  the  things  he  had  taken  along.  He  reserved 
some  of  the  rice,  and  when  he  arrived  at  the  King's  court  he 
gave  it  to  a  hungry  servant  who  in  turn  told  him  the  secret 
of  the  amulet.  So  when  he  was  asked  what  the  amulet  con- 
tained, he  replied  :  "  Hair  clipped  from  the  King's  head 
when  he  was  a  child  ;  a  piece  of  the  calabash  from  which  he 
first  drank  milk ;  and  the  tooth  of  the  first  snake  he  killed." 

This  answer  angered  the  King's  minister,  and  Tamba  was 
put  in  chains.  He  was  subjected  to  various  tests  which  he 
overcame  with  the  aid  of  the  animals  he  had  fed  on  his  trip. 
But  again  he  was  fettered  and  even  lashed. 

One  day  the  King  wanted  to  bathe,  so  he  sent  his  four 
wives  to  fetch  water.  A  young  girl  accompanying  them  saw 
how  all  of  them  were  bitten  by  a  horned  viper  and  ran  back 
to  tell  the  news.  The  wives  were  brought  back  unconscious, 
and  no  one  could  help  them.  The  King  then  thought  of 
Tamba,  who  was  brought  before  him.  Tamba  administered 
an  antidote  which  the  viper  he  had  fed  had  given  him,  the 
wives  recovered,  the  wicked  minister  was  beheaded  and  Tam- 
ba was  rewarded  with  the  hand  of  the  princess. 

THE   SEWING    MATCH 

The  third  tale  is  herewith  translated  verbatim  : 

"  There  was  a  man  who  had  a  most  beautiful  daughter,  the 
favorite  of  all  the  young  men  of  the  place  ;  two,  especially, 
tried  to  win  her  regard.  One  day  these  two  came  together 
and  begged  her  to  choose  one  of  them.  The  young  girl 
called  her  father  ;  when  the  young  men  had  told  him  that 
they  were  suing  for  his  daughter's  hand,  he  requested  them  to 
come  there  the  next  day,  when  he  would  set  them  a  task  and 
the  one  who  got  through  with  it  first  should  have  the  girl. 

"Meanwhile  the  father  bought  in  the  market  a  piece  of 
cloth  and  cut  it  up  for  two  garments.  Now  when  the  two 


PROVERBS   ABOUT   WOMEN  401 

rivals  appeared  the  next  morning  he  gave  to  each  the  mate- 
rials for  a  garment  and  told  them  to  sew  them  together, 
promising  his  daughter  to  the  one  who  should  get  done  first. 
The  daughter  he  ordered  to  thread  the  needles  for  both  the 
men. 

"  Now  the  girl  knew  very  well  which  of  the  two  young  men 
she  would  rather  have  for  a  husband  ;  to  him,  therefore,  she 
always  handed  needles  with  short  threads,  while  the  other  was 
always  supplied  with  long  threads.  Noon  came  and  neither  of 
them  had  finished  his  garment.  After  awhile,  however,  the 
one  who  always  got  the  short  threads  finished  his  task. 

"The  father  was  then  summoned  and  the  young  man  showed 
him  the  garment  ;  whereupon  the  father  said  :  '  You  are  a 
quick  worker  and  will  therefore  surely  be  able  to  support 
your  wife.  Take  my  daughter  as  your  wife  and  always  do 
your  work  rapidly,  then  you  will  always  have  food  for  your- 
self and  your  wife/ 

"  Thus  did  the  young  man  win  his  beloved  by  means  of  her 
cunning.  Joyfully  he  led  her  home  as  his  wife." 


BALING    OUT  THE   BROOK 

This  tale  reveals  the  existence  of  individual  preference, 
but  does  not  hint  at  any  other  ingredient  of  love,  while  the 
father's  promise  of  the  girl  to  the  fastest  worker  shows  a  to- 
tal indifference  to  what  that  preference  might  be.  In  the  fol- 
lowing tale  (also  from  Koelle)  the  girl  again  is  not  consulted. 

"  A  certain  man  had  a  most  beautiful  daughter  who  was 
beset  by  many  suitors.  But  as  soon  as  they  were  told  that 
the  sole  condition  on  which  they  could  obtain  her  was  to  bale 
out  a  brook  with  a  ground-nutshell  (which  is  about  half  the 
sizo  of  a  walnut  shell),  they  always  walked  away  in  disap- 
pointment. However,  at  last  one  took  heart  of  grace,  and 
began  the  task.  He  obtained  the  beauty  ;  for  the  father  said, 
'  Kam  ago  tsuru  baditsia  tsido — he  who  undertakes  what- 
ever he  says,  will  do  it/ '' 


PROVERBS   ABOUT   WOMEN" 

The  last  two  tales  I  have  cited  were  gathered  among  the 
Bornu  people  in  the  Soudan.  In  Barton's  Wit  and  Wisdom 
from  West  Africa  we  find  a  few  proverbs  about  women  that 


402  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

are  current  in  the  same  region.  "  If  a  woman  speaks  two 
words,  take  one  and  leave  the  other."  "  Whatever  be  thy  in- 
timacy, never  give  thy  heart  to  a  woman."  "If  thou  givest 
thy  heart  to  a  woman,  she  will  kill  thee."  "  If  a  man  tells 
his  secrets  to  his  wife,  she  will  bring  him  into  the  way  of 
Satan."  "A  woman  never  brings  a  man  into  the  right  way." 
"  Men  who  listen  to  what  women  say,  are  counted  as  women." 
It  is  significant  that  in  the  four  hundred  and  fifty- five  pages 
of  Burton's  book,  which  includes  over  four  hundred  proverbs 
and  tales,  there  are  only  half  a  dozen  brief  references  to 
women,  and  those  are  sneers. 

AFRICAN   AMAZONS 

As  I  have  had  occasion  to  remark  before,  African  women 
lack  the  finer  feminine  qualities,  both  bodily  and  mental, 
wherefore  even  if  an  African  man  were  able  to  feel  sentimen- 
tal love  he  could  not  find  an  object  to  bestow  it  on.  An  in- 
cident related  by  Du  Chaillu  (Ashango  Land,  187)  illus- 
trates the  martial  side  of  African  femininity.  A  married  man 
named  Mayolo  had  called  another  man's  wife  toward  him. 
His  own  wife,  hearing  of  this,  got  jealous,  told  him  the  other 
must  be  his  sweetheart,  and  rushed  out  to  seek  her  rival. 
A  battle  ensued  : 

"  Women's  fights  in  this  country  always  begin  by  their 
1  .rowing  off  their  dengui — that  is,  stripping  themselves  en- 
,-rely  naked.  The  challenger  having  thus  denuded  herself, 
her  enemy  showed  pluck  and  answered  the  challenge  by 
promptly  doing  the  same  ;  so  that  the  two  elegant  figures 
immediately  went  at  it  literally  tooth  and  nail,  for  they 
fought  like  cats,  and  between  the  rounds  reviled  each  other 
in  language  the  most  filthy  that  could  possibly  be  uttered. 
Mayolo  being  asleep  in  his  house,  and  no  one  seeming  ready 
to  interfere,  I  went  myself  and  separated  the  two  furies." 

In  Dahomey,  as  everybody  knows,  the  bellicose  possibilities 
of  the  African  woman  have  been  utilized  in  forming  bands  of 
Amazons  which  are  described  as  "the  flower  of  the  army." 
They  are  made  up  of  female  captives  and  other  women,  wear 
special  uniforms,  and  in  battle  are  credited  with  even  greater 


WHERE   WOMAN    COMMANDS  403 

ferocity  than  the  men.  These  women  are  Amazons  not  of 
their  own  accord  but  by  order  of  the  king.  But  in  other 
parts  of  Africa  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  bands  of  self- 
constituted  female  warriors  have  existed  at  various  times. 
Diodorus  Siculus,  who  lived  in  the  time  of  Julius  Cagsar, 
says  that  on  the  western  coast  of  Libya  (Africa)  there  used  to 
live  a  people  governed  by  women,  who  carried  on  wars  and 
the  government,  the  men  being  obliged  to  do  domestic  work 
and  take  care  of  the  children.  In  our  time  Livingstone 
found  in  the  villages  of  the  Bechuanas  and  Banyas  that  men 
were  often  badly  treated  by  the  women,  and  the  eminent 
German  anthropologist  Bastian  says  (S.  8.,  178)  that  in  "  the 
Soudan  the  power  of  the  women  banded  together  for  mutual 
protection  is  so  great  that  men  are  often  put  under  ban  and 
obliged  to  emigrate."  Mungo  Park  described  the  curious 
bugaboo  (mumbo-jumbo)  by  means  of  which  the  Mandingo 
negroes  used  to  keep  their  rebellious  women  in  subjection. 
According  to  Bastian,  associations  for  keeping  women  in 
subjection  are  common  among  men  along  the  whole  African 
West  Coast.  The  women,  too,  have  their  associations,  and 
at  their  meetings  compare  notes  on  the  meanness  and  cruelty 
of  their  husbands.  Now  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that  among 
tribes  where  many  of  the  men  have  been  killed  off  in  wars 
the  women,  being  in  a  great  majority,  may,  for  a  time  at 
least,  turn  the  tables  on  the  men,  assume  their  weapons  and 
make  them  realize  how  it  feels  to  be  the  "inferior  sex." 
For  this  reason  Bastian  sees  no  occasion  to  share  the  modern 
disposition  to  regard  all  the  Amazon  legends  as  myths. 


WHERE   WOMAN   COMMANDS 

If  we  now  return  from  the  West  Coast  to  Eastern  Africa 
we  find  on  the  northern  confines  of  Abyssinia  a  strange  case 
of  the  subjection  of  men,  which  Munzinger  has  described  in 
his  Ostafnkanische  Studien  (275-338).  The  Beni  Amer  are 
a  tribe  of  Mohammedan  shepherds  among  whom  "  the  sexes 
seem  to  have  exchanged  roles,  the  women  being  more  mascu- 
line in  their  work."  Property  is  legally  held  in  common, 


404  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

wherefore  the  men  rarely  dare  to  do  anything  without  consult- 
ing their  wives.  In  return  for  this  submission  they  are 
treated  with  the  utmost  contempt : 

"  For  every  angry  word  that  the  husband  utters  he  is  com- 
pelled to  pay  a  fine,,  and  perhaps  spend  a  whole  rainy  night 
outdoors  till  he  has  promised  to  give  his  weaker  half  a  camel 
and  a  cow.  Thus  the  wife  acquires  a  property  of  her  own, 
which  the  husband  never  is  allowed  to  touch  ;  many  women 
have  in  this  way  ruined  their  husbands  and  then  left  them. 
The  women  have  much  esprit  de  corps ;  if  one  of  them  has 
ground  for  complaint,  all  the  others  come  to  her  aid.  .  .  . 
Of  course  the  man  is  always  found  in  the  wrong  ;  the  whole 
village  is  in  a  turmoil.  This  esprit  de  corps  demands  that 
every  woman,  whether  she  loves  her  husband  or  not,  must 
conceal  her  love  and  treat  hirn  contemptuously.  It  is  consid- 
ered disgraceful  for  her  to  show  her  love  to  her  husband. 
This  contempt  for  men  goes  so  far  that  if  a  wife  laments  the 
death  of  her  husband  who  has  died  without  issue,  her  com- 
panions taunt  her.  .  .  .  One  often  hears  women  abuse 
their  husbands  or  other  men  in  the  most  obscene  language, 
even  on  the  street,  and  the  men  do  not  dare  to  make  the 
least  retort."  "  The  wife  can  at  any  time  return  to  her 
mother's  house,  and  remain  there  months,  sending  word  to 
her  husband  that  he  may  come  to  her  if  he  cares  for  her/' 


NO    CHANCE   FOR    ROMANTIC   LOVE 

The  causes  of  this  singular  effeminacy  of  the  men  and 
masculinity  of  the  women  are  not  indicated  by  Munzinger  ; 
but  so  much  is  clear  that,  although  the  tables  are  turned, 
Cupid  is  again  left  in  the  cold.  Nor  is  there  any  romance 
in  the  courtship  which  leads  to  such  hen-pecked  conjugal 
life  : 

"  The  children  are  often  married  very  early,  and  engaged 
earlier  still.  The  bridegroom  goes  with  his  companions  to 
fetch  his  bride  ;  but  after  having  talked  with  her  parents  he 
returns  without  having  seen  her.  The  bride  thereafter  re- 
mains another  whole  year  with  her  parents.  After  its  expira- 
tion the  bridegroom  sends  women  and  a  camel  to  bring  her 
to  his  home  ;  she  is  taken  away  with  her  tent,  but  the  bridal 
escort  is  often  fooled  by  the  substitution  in  the  bride's  place 
of  another  girl,  who  allows  herself  to  be  taken  along,  carefully 


PASTORAL    LOVE  405 

veiled,  and  after* the  village  has  been  left  behind  betrays  her- 
self and  runs  away." 

These  Beni  Amer  are  of  course  far  superior  in  culture  to 
the  Bushmen,  Hottentots,  Kaffirs,  and  West  Coast  peoples 
we  have  been  considering  so  far,  having  long  been  in  contact 
with  Oriental  influences.  It  is  therefore  as  strange  as  it  is 
instructive  to  note  that  as  soon  as  a  race  becomes  civilized 
enough  to  feel  a  kind  of  love  exalted  above  mere  sensuality, 
special  pains  are  taken  to  interpose  fresh  obstacles,  as  in  the 
above  case,  where  it  is  good  form  to  suppress  all  affection, 
and  where  a  young  man  may  not  see  his  bride  even  after  en- 
gagement. This  last  custom  seems  to  be  of  common  occur- 
rence in  this  part  of  Africa.  Munzinger  (387)  says  of  the 
Kimama  :  "  As  among  the  border  peoples  engagements  are 
often  made  at  a  very  early  age,  after  which  time  bride  and 
bridegroom  avoid  each  other  ;"  and  again  (147)  concerning 
the  region  of  Massua,  on  the  -Red  Sea  : 

"  From  the  day  of  the  engagement  the  young  man  is 
obliged  to  carefully  avoid  the  bride  and  her  mother.  The 
desire  to  see  her  after  the  engagement  is  considered  very 
improper,  and  often  leads  to  a  breaking-up  of  the  affair.  If 
the  youth  meets  the  girl  accidentally,  she  veils  her  face  and 
her  friends  surround  her  to  cover  her  from  the  bridegroom's 


sight." 


PASTORAL   LOVE 


These  attachments  are  so  shallow  that  if  the  fortune-teller 
who  is  always  consulted  gives  an  unfavorable  forecast,  the 
engagement  is  forthwith  broken  off.  It  is  instructive  to  note 
further  that  the  rigid  separation  of  a  man  from  his  betrothed 
serves  merely  to  stifle  legitimate  love  ;  its  object  cannot  be  to 
prevent  improper  intimacies,  for  before  engagement  the  girls 
enjoy  perfect  liberty  to  do  what  they  please,  and  after  en- 
gagement they  may  converse  with  anyone  except  the  lover. 
As  Parkyns  (II.,  41)  tells  us,  he  is  never  allowed  to  see  his 
intended  wife  even  for  a  moment,  unless  he  can  bribe  some 
female  friend  to  arrange  it  so  he  can  get  a  peep  at  her  by 
concealing  himself  ;  but  if  the  girl  discovers  him  she  covers 


406  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

her  face,  screams,  runs  away,  and  hides.  This  "  coyness  "  is 
a  pure  sham.  In  reality  the  Abyssinian  girl  is  anything  but 
coy.  Munzinger  thus  describes  her  character  : 

"  The  shepherd  girls  in  the  neighborhood  of  Massua  always 
earn  some  money  by  carrying  water  and  provisions  to  the  city. 
The  youngest  girls  are  sent  there  heedlessly,  and  are  often 
cheated  out  of  more  than  their  money,  and  therefore  they  do 
not  usually  make  the  best  of  wives,  being  coquettish  and  very 
eager  for  money.  The  refinements  of  innocence  must  not  be 
sought  for  in  this  country  ;  they  are  incompatible  with  the 
simple  arrangement  of  the  nouses  and  the  unrestrained  free- 
dom of  conversation.  No  one  objects  to  this,  a  family's  only 
anxiety  being  that  the  girl  should  not  lose  the  semblance  of 
virginity.  .  .  .  If  a  child  is  born  it  is  mercilessly  killed  by 
the  girl's  grandmother." 

Sentimental  admirers  of  what  they  suppose  to  be  genuine 
'*  pastoral  love  poetry"  will  find  further  food  for  thought  in 
the  following  Abyssinian  picture  from  Parkyns  (II.,  40)  : 

"  The  boys  are  turned  out  wild  to  look  after  the  sheep  and 
cattle  ;  and  the  girls  from  early  childhood  are  sent  to  fetch 
water  from  the  well  or  brook,  first  in  a  gourd,  and  afterward 
in  a  jar  proportioned  to  their  strength.  These  occupations 
are  not  conducive  to  the  morality  of  either  sex.  If  the  well 
be  far  from  the  village,  the  girls  usually  form  parties  to  go 
thither,  and  amuse  themselves  on  the  road  by  singing  senti- 
mental or  love  songs,  which  not  unfrequently  verge  upon  the 
obscene,  and  indulge  in  conversation  of  a  similar  description  ; 
while,  during  their  halt  at  the  well  for  an  hour  or  so,  they  en- 
gage in  romps  of  all  kinds,  in  which  parties  of  the  other  sex 
frequently  join.  This  early  license  lays  the  foundation  for 
the  most  corrupt  habits,  when  at  a  later  period  they  are  sent 
to  the  woods  to  collect  fuel." 

James  Bruce,  one  of  the  earliest  Europeans  to  visit  the  Abys- 
sinians,  describes  them  as  living  practically  in  a  state  of  pro- 
miscuity, divorce  being  so  frequent  that  he  once  saw  a  woman 
surrounded  by  seven  former  husbands,  and  there  being  hardly 
any  difference  between  legitimacy  and  illegitimacy.  Another 
old  writer,  Rev.  S.  Gobat,  describes  the  Abyssinians  as  light- 
minded,  having  nothing  constant  but  inconstancy  itself.  A 
more  recent  writer,  J.  Rotten  (133-35),  explains,  in  the  fol- 


PASTORAL   LOVE  407 

lowing  sentence,  a  fact  which  has  often  misled  unwary  ob- 
servers t  "  Females  are  rarely  gross  or  immodest  outwardly, 
seeing  that  they  need  in  no  way  be  ashamed  of  the  freest  in- 
tercourse with  the  other  sex/'  "  Rape  is  venial,  and  adultery 
regards  only  the  husband."  The  Christian  Abyssinians  are 
in  this  respect  no  better  than  the  others,  regarding  lewd  con- 
duct with  indifference.  But  the  most  startling  exhibition  of 
Abyssinian  grossness  is  given  by  the  Habab  and  Mensa  con- 
cerning whom  Munzinger  says  (150),  that  whenever  a  girl 
decides  to  give  herself  up  to  a  dissolute  life  "  a  public  festival 
is  arranged,  cows  are  butchered  and  a  night  is  spent  amid 
song  and  dances/' 

The  four  volumes  of  Combes  and  Tamisier  on  Abyssinia 
give  a  vivid  idea  of  the  utter  absence  of  sexual  morality  in 
that  country.  With  an  intelligence  rare  among  explorers 
they  distinguish  between  love  of  the  senses  and  love  of  the 
heart,  and  declare  that  the  latter  is  not  to  be  found  in  this 
country.  "  Abyssinian  women  love  everybody  for  money  and 
no  one  gratis/'  They  do  not  even  suspect  the  possibility  of 
any  other  kind  of  love,  and  the  only  distinction  they  make 
is  that  a  man  who  pleases  them  pays  less.  "  But  what  one 
never  finds  with  anyone  in  Abyssinia  is  that  refined  and  pure 
sentiment  which  gives  so  much  charm  to  love  in  Europe. 
Here  the  heart  is  seldom  touched  ;  tender  words  are  often 
spoken,  but  they  are  banal  and  rarely  sincere  ;  never  do  these 
people  experience  those  extraordinary  emotions  of  which  the 
very  remembrance  agitates  us  a  long  time,  those  celestial  feel- 
ings which  convert  an  atheist  into  a  believer.  In  this  country 
love  has  all  its  existence  in  a  moment,  having  neither  a  past 
nor  a  future/'  The  authors  go  so  far  as  to  doubt  a  story  they 
heard  of  a  girl  who  was  said  to  have  committed  suicide  to 
escape  a  hated  suitor  forced  on  her  ;  but  there  is  nothing  im- 
probable in  this,  as  we  know  that  a  strong  aversion  may  exist 
even  where  there  is  no  capacity  for  true  love,  and  the  former 
by  no  means  implies  the  latter.  Jealousy,  they  found  further, 
"is  practically  unknown  in  Abyssinia."  "If  jealousy  is 
manifested  occasionally  by  women  we  must  not  deceive  our- 
selves regarding  the  nature  of  this  feeling  ;  when  an  Abys- 


408        .         SPECIMENS    OF    AFRICAN   LOVE 

sinienne  envies  the  love  another  inspires  she  is  jealous  only  of 
the  comfort  which  that  love  may  insure  for  the  other"  (II., 
Chap.  V.). 

ABYSSINIAN    BEAUTY    AND    FLIRTATION 

Abyssinian  women  are  not  deficient  in  a  certain  sensual 
kind  of  beauty.  Their  fine  figures,  large  black  eyes,  and 
white  teeth  have  been  admired  by  many  travellers.  But 
Parkyns  (II.,  5)  avers  that  "  though  flowers  of  beauty  no- 
where bloom  with  more  luxuriance  than  in  ^Ethiopia,  yet, 
alas  !  there  shines  on  them  no  mental  sun/'  They  make  use 
of  their  eyes  to  great  advantage — but  not  to  express  soul-love. 
What  flirtation  in  this  part  of  the  world  consists  in,  may  be 
inferred  from  Donaldson  Smith's  amusing  account  (245,  270) 
of  a  young  Boran  girl  who  asked  permission  to  accompany  his 
caravan,  offering  to  cook,  bring  wood,  etc.  She  was  provided 
with  a  piece  of  white  sheeting  for  a  dress,  but  when  tired  from 
marching,  being  unused  to  so  much  clothing,  she  threw  the 
whole  thing  aside  and  walked  about  naked.  Her  name  was 
Ola.  Some  time  afterward  one  of  the  native  guides  began 
to  make  love  to  Ola  :  "I  oversaw  the  two  flirting  and  was 
highly  amused  at  the  manner  in  which  they  went  about  it. 
It  consisted  almost  entirely  in  tickling  and  pinching,  each 
silly  being  accompanied  by  roars  of  laughter.  They  never 
kissed,  as  such  a  thing  is  unknown  in  Africa." 

GALLA   COARSENESS 

South  of  Abyssinia  there  are  three  peoples — the  Galla, 
Somali,  and  Harari — among  some  of  whom,  if  we  may  believe 
Dr.  Paulitschke,  the  germs  of  true  love  are  to  be  found.  Let 
us  briefly  examine  them  in  turn,  with  Paulitschke's  ar- 
guments. Hartmanii  (401)  assigns  to  the  Gallas  a  high 
rank  among  African  races,  and  Paulitschke  (B.  z.  E.,  51-56) 
describes  them  as  more  intelligent  than  the  Somali,  but 
also  more  licentious.  Boys  marry  at  sixteen  to  eighteen, 
girls  at  twelve  to  sixteen.  The  women  are  compelled  to 


SOMALI    LOVE-AFFAIRS  409 

do  most  of  the  hard  work  ;  wives  are  often  badly  treated, 
and  when  their  husbands  get  tired  of  them  they  send  them 
away.  Good  friends  lend  each  other  their  wives,  and  they 
also  lend  them  to  guests.  If  a  man  kills  his  wife  no  one 
minds  it.  Few  Schoa  girls  are  virgins  when  they  marry 
(Eth.  N.  Afr.f  195),  and  the  married  women  are  easily  led 
from  the  path  of  virtue  by  small  presents.  In  other  parts 
girls  take  a  pride  in  preserving  their  purity,  but  atone  for 
it  by  a  dissolute  life  after  marriage.  Brides  are  subjected 
to  an  obscene  examination,  and  if  not  found  pure  are  sup- 
posed to  be  legally  disqualified  from  marriage.  To  avoid  the 
disgrace,  the  parents  bribe  the  bridegroom  to  keep  the  secret, 
ami  to  assert  the  bride's  innocence.  A  curious  detail  of  Galla 
courtship  consists  in  the  precautions  the  parents  of  rich 
youths  have  to  take  to  protect  them  from  designing  poor 
girls  and  their  mothers.  Often,  when  the  parents  of  a  rich 
youth  are  averse  to  the  match,  the  coy  bride  goes  to  their  hut, 
jumps  over  the  surrounding  hedge,  and  remains  there  endur- 
ing the  family's  abuse  until  they  finally  accept  her.  To  pre- 
vent such  an  invasion — a  sort  of  inverted  capture,  in  which 
the  woman  is  the  aggressor — the  parents  of  rich  sons  build 
very  high  hedges  round  their  houses  to  keep  out  girls  !  Not 
infrequently,  boys  and  girls  are  married  when  only  six  or 
eight  years  old,  and  forthwith  live  together  as  husband  and 
wife. 

SOMALI   LOV'E-AFFAIRS 

It  is  among  the  neighbors  of  these  Gallas  that  Paulitschke 
(30)  fancied  he  discovered  the  existence  of  refined  love  : 

"  Adult  youths  and  maidens  have  occasion,  especially  while 
tending  the  cattle,  to  'form  attachments.  These  are  of  an 
idealized  nature,  because  the  young  folks  are  brought  up  in  a 
remarkably  chaste  and  serious  manner.  The  father  is  proud 
of  his  blooming  daughter  and  guards  her  like  a  treasure. 
.  .  .  In  my  opinion,  marriages  among  the  Western  Somals 
are  mostly  based  on  cordial  mutual  affection.  A  young  man 
renders  homage  to  his  beloved  in  son£.  '  Thou  art  beautiful/ 
he  sings,  '  thy  limbs  are  plump,  if  thou  wouldst  drink  earn- 
ers milk  thou  wert  more  beautiful  still/  The  girl,  on  her 


410  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

part,  gives  expression  to  her  longing  for  the  absent  lover  in 
this  melancholy  song  :  '  The  camel  needs  good  grazing,  and 
dislikes  to  leave  it.  My  beloved  has  left  the  country.  On 
account  of  the  children  of  Sahal  (the  lover's  family),  my 
heart  is  always  so  heavy.  Others  throw  themselves  into  the 
ocean,  but  I  perish  from  grief.  Could  I  but  find  the  be- 
loved."* 


What  evidence  of  "  idealized "  love  is  there  in  these 
poems  ?  The  girl  expresses  longing  for  an  absent  man,  and 
longing,  as  we  have  seen,  characterizes  all  kinds  of  love  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest.  It  is  one  of  the  selfish  ingredients 
of  love,  and  is  therefore  evidence  of  self-love,  not  of  other- 
love.  As  for  the  lover's  poern,  what  is  it  but  the  grossest  sen- 
sualism, the  usual  African  apotheosis  of  fat  ?  Imagine  an 
American  lover  saying  to  a  girl,  "  You  are  beautiful  for  you 
are  plump,  but  you  would  be  more  beautiful  still  if  you  ate 
more  pork  and  beans  " — would  she  regard  this  as  evidence  of 
refined  love,  or  would  she  turn  her  back  and  never  speak  to 
him  again  ?  Anthropologists  are  sometimes  strangely  naive. 
We  have  just  seen  what  kind  of  "  attachments  "  are  formed  by 
African  youths  and  girls  while  tending  cattle  ;  Burton  adds 
to  the  evidence  (F.  F.9  120)  by  telling  us  that  among  the 
Somali  ' '  the  bride,  as  usual  in  the  East,  is  rarely  consulted, 
but  frequent  tete-a-Utes  at  the  well  and  in  the  bush  when 
tending  cattle  effectually  obviate  this  inconvenience."  "At 
the  wells/' says  Donaldson  Smith  (15),  "you  will  see  both 
sexes  bathing  together,  with  little  regard  for  decency."  They 
are  indeed  lower  than  brutes  in  their  impulses,  for  the  only 
way  parents  can  save  their  infant  girls  from  being  maltreated 
is  by  the  practice  of  infibulation,  to  which,  as  Paulitschke  him- 
self tells  us,  the  girls  are  subjected  at  the  early  age  of  four,  or 
even  three  ;  yet,  even  this,  he  likewise  informs  us,  is  not 
always  effectual. 

As  for  the  father's  great  pride  in  his  daughter,  and  his 
guarding  her  like  a  treasure,  that  is,  by  the  concurrent  testi- 
mony of  the  authorities,  not  a  token  of  affection  or  a  regard 
for  virtue,  but  a  purely  commercial  matter.  Paulitschke 
himself  says  (30)  that  while  the  mother  is  devoted  to  her 


SOMALI    LOVE-AFFAIRS  411 

child,  ' '  the  father  pays  no  attention  to  it."  On  the  follow- 
ing page  he  adds  :  "The  more  well-to-do  the  father  is,  and 
the  more  beautiful  his  daughter,  the  longer  he  seeks  to  keep 
her  under  the  paternal  roof,  for  the  purpose  of  securing  a 
bigger  price  for  her  through  the  competition  of  ^suitors." 
Of  the  Western  Somali  tribes  at  Zayla,  Captain  J.  S.  King 
says 1  that  when  a  man  has  fixed  his  choice  on  a  girl  he  pays 
her  father  $100  to  $800.  After  that 

"  the  proposer  is  entitled  (on  payment  of  $5  each  time)  to 
private  interviews  with  his  fiancee  to  enable  him  by  a  closer 
inspection  to  judge  better  of  her  personal  charms.  But  it 
frequently  happens  that  the  young  man  squanders  all  his 
money  on  these  '  interviews '  before  paying  the  dafa  agreed 
upon.  The  girl  then  (at  her  parents'  instigation)  breaks  off 
the  match,  and  her  father,  when  expostulated  with,  replies 
that  he  will  not  force  his  daughter's  inclinations.  Hence 
arise  innumerable  breach-of-promise-of -marriage  suits,  in 
which  the  man  is  invariably  the  plaintiff.  I  have  known  in- 
stances of  a  girl  being  betrothed  to  three  or  four  different 
men  in  about  a  year's  time,  their  father  receiving  a  certain 
amount  of  dafa  from  each  suitor." 2 

Donaldson  Smith  remarks (12)  that  Somali  women  "are  re- 
garded merely  as  goods  and  chattels.  In  a  conversation  with 
one  of  my  boys  he  told  me  that  he  only  owned  five  camels, 
but  that  he  had  a  sister  from  whom  he  expected  to  get  much 
money  when  he  sold  her  in  marriage."  The  gross  commer- 
cialism of  Somali  love-affairs  is  further  illustrated  by  the 
Ogaden  custom  (Paulitschke,  E.  N.  A.,  199)  of  pouring 
strong  perfumes  over  the  bride  in  order  to  stimulate  the  ardor 
of  the  suitor  and  make  him  willing  to  pay  more  for  her — a 
trick  which  is  often  successful.  How,  under  such  circum- 
stances, Somal  marriages  can  be  "  mostly  based  on  cordial 
mutual  affection  "  is  a  mystery  for  Dr.  Paulitschke  to  ex- 
plain. Burton  proved  himself  a  keener  observer  and  psychol- 
ogist when  he  wrote  (F.  F.,  122),  "  The  Somal  knows  none 
of  the  exaggerated  and  chivalrous  ideas  by  which  passion  be- 

1  Folk  Lore  Journal,  London,  1888,  119-2'3. 

2  Compare  this  with  what  I  said  on  page  340  about  the  behavior  of  girls  in  the 
New  Britain  Group. 


412  SPECIMENS    OF   AFRICAN    LOVE 

comes  refined  affection  among  the  Arab  Bedouins  and  the 
sons  of  civilization."  I  may  add  what  this  writer  says  regard- 
ing Somal  poetry  :  "  The  subjects  are  frequently  pastoral ; 
the  lover,  for  instance,  invites  his  mistress  to  walk  with  him 
toward  tUe  well  in  Lahelo,  the  Arcadia  of  the  land  ;  he  com- 
pares her  legs  to  the  tall,  straight  Libi  tree,  and  imprecates 
the  direst  curses  on  her  head  if  she  refuses  to  drink  with  him 
the  milk  of  his  favorite  camel." 


AKABIC    INFLUENCES 

The  Harari,  neighbors  of  the  Somals,  are  another  people 
among  whom  Paulitschke  fancied  that  he  discovered  signs  of 
idealized  love  (B.  E.  A.  S.,  JO).  Their  youthful  attach- 
ments, he  says,  are  intense  and  noble,  and  in  proof  of  this  he 
translates  two  of  their  poems  on  the  beauty  of  a  bride.  I. 
"  I  tell  thee  this  only  :  thy  face  is  like  silk,  Aisa ;  I  say  it 
again,  I  tell  thee  nothing  but  that.  Thou  art  slender  as  a 
lance-shaft  ;  thy  father  and  thy  mother  are  Arabs  ;  they  all 
are  Arabs  ;  I  tell  thee  this  only."  II.  "  Thy  form  is  like  a 
burning  lamp,  Aisa  ;  I  love  thee.  When  thou  art  at  the  side 
of  Abrahim,  thou  burnest  him  with  the  light  of  thy  beauty. 
To-morrow  I  shall  see  thee  again."  In  a  third  (freely  trans- 
lated and  proted  in  the  appendix  of  the  same  volume)  occur 
these  lines  : 

"  The  honey  is  already  taken  out  and  I  come  with  it.  The 
milk  is  already  drawn  and  I  bring  it.  And  now  thou  art  the 
pure  honey,  and  now  thou  art  the  fresh  milk.  The  gathered 
honey  is  very  sweet,  and  therefore  it  was  drunk  to  thy  health. 
Thine  eyes  are  black,  dyed  with  Kabul.  The  fresh  milk  is 
very  sweet  and  therefore  it  was  drunk  to  thy  health.  I  have 
seen  Sina — oh,  how  sweet  was  Sina.  .  .  .  Thine  eyes  are 
like  the  full  moon,  and  thy  body  is  fragrant  as  the  fragrance 
of  rose-water.  And  she  lives  in  the  garden  of  her  father 
and  the  garments  on  her  body  become  fragrant  as  basil. 
.  .  .  And  thou  art  like  a  king's  garden  in  which  all  per- 
fumes are  united." 

It  is  easy  to  note  Arabic  influences  in  these  poems.  The 
Harari  are  largely  Arabic  ;  their  very  language  is  being  ab- 


TOUAREG    CHIVALRY  413 

sorbed  in  the  Arabic  ;  yet  I  cannot  find  in  these  poems  the 
least  evidence  of  amorous  idealism  or  "noble"  sentiment. 
To  have  a  lover  compare  a  girl's  face  to  silk,  her  form  to  a 
lance-shaft  or  a  burning  lamp,  her  eyes  to  the  full  moon, 
may  be  an  imaginative  sort  of  sensualism,  but  it  is  purely 
sensual  nevertheless.  If  an  American  lover  told  a  girl,  "  I 
bought  some  delicious  candy  and  ate  it,  thinking  of  you  ;  I 
ordered  a  glass  of  sweet  soda-water  and  drank  it  to  your 
health" — would  she  regard  that  as  evidence  of  "  noble" 
love,  or  of  any  kind  of  love  at  all,  except  a  kind  of  cupboard 
love  ? 

No,  not  even  here,  where  Arabian  influences  prevail,  do  we 
come  across  the  germs  of  true  love.  It  is  the  same  all  over 
Africa.  Nowhere  do  we  find  indications  that  men  admire  other 
things  in  women  except,  at  most,  voluptuous  eyes  and  plump 
figures ;  nowhere  do  the  men  perform  unselfish  acts  of  gal- 
lantry and  self-sacrifice ;  nowhere  exhibit  sympathy  with 
their  females,  who,  far  from  being  goddesses,  are  not  even 
companions,  but  simply  drudges  and  slaves  to  lust.  A  whole 
volume  would  be  required  to  demonstrate  that  this  holds  true 
of  all  parts  of  Africa  ;  but  the  present  chapter  is  already  too 
long  and  I  must  close  with  a  brief  reference  to  the  Berbers  of 
Algeria  (Kabyles)  to  show  that  at  the  northern  extremity  of 
Africa,  as  at  the  southern,  the  eastern,  the  western,  love 
spells  lust.  Here,  too,  man  is  lower  than  animals.  Ca- 
mille  Sabatier,  who  was  a  justice  of  the  peace  at  Tizi-Onzan, 
speaks1  of  "  la  Irutalite  du  male  qui,  souvent  nieine  chez  les 
/w/A///«".v,  n' 'attend  pas  la  mililite  pour  deflorer  la  jeune  en- 
fant." The  girls,  he  adds,  "detest  their  husbands  with  all 
their  heart.  Love  is  almost  always  unknown  to  them — I 
mean  by  love  that  ensemble  of  refined  sentiments,  which, 
among  civilized  peoples,  ennoble  the  sexual  appetite." 

TOUAREG    CHIVALRY 

A  guileless  reader  of  Chavanne's  book  on  the  Sahara  is  apt 
to  get  the  impression  that  there  is,  after  all,  an  oasis  in  the 

1  Revue  d'Authropologie,  1883. 


414  SPECIMENS   OF   AFRICAN   LOVE 

desert  of  African  lovelessness  and  contempt  for  women. 
Touareg  women,  we  are  told  therein  (208-10),  are  allowed 
to  dispose  of  their  hands  and  to  eat  with  the  men,  certain 
dishes  being  reserved  for  them,  others  (including  tea  and 
coffee)  for  the  men.  In  the  evening  the  women  assemble  and 
improvise  songs  while  the  men  sit  around  in  their  best  attire. 
The  women  write  mottoes  on  the  men's  shields,  and  the  men 
carve  their  chosen  one's  name  in  the  rocks  and  sing  her 
praises.  The  situation  has  been  compared  to  mediaeval  chiv- 
alry. But  when  we  examine  it  more  critically  than  the 
biassed  Chavanne  did,  we  find,  using  his  own  data,  more  of 
Africa  than  appeared  to  be  there  at  first  sight.  The  woman, 
we  are  informed,  owes  the  husband  obedience,  and  he  can  di- 
vorce her  at  pleasure.  When  a  woman  talks  to  a  man  she 
veils  her  face  ' '  as  a  sign  of  respect."  And  when  the  men 
travel,  they  are  accompanied  by  those  of  their  female  slaves 
who  are  young  and  pretty.  Their  morals  are  farther  charac- 
terized by  the  fact  that  descent  is  in  the  female  line,  which  is 
usually  due  to  uncertain  paternity.  The  women  are  ugly  and 
masculine,  and  Chavanne  does  not  mention  a  single  fact  or 
act  which  proves  that  they  experience  supersensual,  altruistic 
love. 

So  far  as  the  position  of  Touareg  women  is  superior  to 
that  of  other  Africans,  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  slaves  are 
kept  to  do  the  hard  work  and  to  certain  European  and  Chris- 
tian influences  and  the  institution  of  theoretical  monogamy. 
Possibly  the  germs  of  a  better  sort  of  love  may  exist  among 
them,  as  they  may  among  the  Bedouins ;  they  must  make  a 
beginning  somewhere. 

AN  AFRICAN   LOVE-LETTER 

T.  J.  Hutchinson  declares  that  the  gentle  god  of  love  is 
unknown  in  the  majority  of  African  kingdoms  :  "  It  in  fact 
seems  to  be  crawling  into  life  only  in  one  or  two  places  where 
our  language  is  the  established  one."  He  prints  a  quaint 
love-letter  addressed  by  a  Liberian  native  to  his  colored  sweet- 
heart. The  substance  of  the  letter,  it  is  true,  is  purely  ego- 


AN   AFRICAN   LOVE-LETTER  415 

tistic  ;  it  might  be  summed  up  in  the  words,  "Oh,  how  I 
wish  you  were  here  to  make  me  happy."  Yet  it  opens  up 
vistas  of  future  possibilities.  I  cite  it  verbatim  : 

"  My  Dear  Miss, — I  take  my  pen  in  hand  to  Embrac  you 
of  my  health,  I  was  very  sick  this  morning  but  know  I  am 
better  but  I  hope  it  may  find  you  in  a  state  of  Enjoying  good 
health  and  so  is  your  Relation.  Oh  my  dear  Miss  what  would 
I  give  if  I  could  see  thy  lovely  Face  this  precious  minnit  0 
miss  you  had  promis  me  to  tell  me  something,  and  I  like  you 
to  let  you  know  I  am  very  anxious  to  know  what  it  is  give 
my  Respect  to  the  young  mens  But  to  the  young  ladys  espe- 
cially 0  I  am  long  to  see  you  0  miss  if  I  don't  see  you  shortly 
surely  I  must  die  I  shut  my  mouth  to  hold  my  breath  Miss 
don't  you  cry  0  my  little  pretty  turtle  dove  I  wont  you  to 
write  to  me,  shall  I  go  Bound  or  shall  I  go  free  or  shall  I  love 
a  pretty  girl  a  she  don't  love  me  give  my  Respect  all  enquiring 
Friend  Truly  Your  respectfully, 

"J H 

"Nothing  more  to  say  0  miss." 


ABOKIGINAL  ATJSTKALIAN  LOVE 

The  founders  of  the  Australian  race,  Curr  believes,  were 
Africans,  and  may  have  arrived  in  one  canoe.  The  distance 
from  Africa  to  Australia  is,  however,  great,  and  there  are  in- 
numerable details  of  structure,  color,  custom,  myth,  imple- 
ments, language,  etc.,  which  have  led  the  latest  authorities 
to  conclude  that  the  Australian  race  was  formed  gradually 
by  a  mixture  of  Papuans,  Malayans,  and  Dravidians  of  Cen- 
tral India.1  Topinard  has  given  reasons  for  believing  that 
there  are  two  distinct  races  in  Australia.  However  that  may 
be,  there  are  certainly  great  differences  in  the  customs  of  the 
natives.  As  regards  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  luckily,  these 
differences  are  not  so  great  as  in  some  other  respects,  where- 
fore it  is  possible  to  give  a  tolerably  accurate  bird's-eye  view 
of  the  Australians  as  a  whole  from  this  point  of  view. 

PERSONAL   CHARMS    OF    AUSTRALIANS 

Once  in  awhile,  in  the  narrative  of  those  who  have  trav- 
elled or  sojourned  among  Australians,  one  comes  across  a  ref- 
erence to  the  symmetrical  form,  soft  skin,  red  lips,  and  white 
teeth  of  a  young  Australian  girl.  Mitchell  in  his  wanderings 
saw  several  girls  with  beautiful  features  and  figures.  Of  one 
of  these,  who  seemed  to  be  the  most  influential  person  in 
camp,  he  says  (I.,  266)  :  "  She  was  now  all  animation,  and  her 
finely  shaped  mouth,  beautiful  teeth,  and  well-formed  person 
appeared  to  great  advantage  as  she  hung  over  us  both,  ad- 
dressing me  vehemently/'  etc.  Of  two  other  girls  the  same 
writer  says  (II.,  93)  : 

"  The  youngest  was  the  handsomest  female  I  had  ever  seen 

1  See  an  elaborate  discussion  of  this  question  by  the  Rev.  John  Mathew  in 
the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Society  of  K  .V.  Wales,  Vol.  XXIII. ,  3o5-440. 

416 


PERSONAL   CHARMS   OF   AUSTRALIANS       417 

amongst  the  natives.  She  was  so  far  from  black  that  the  red 
color  was  very  apparent  in  her  cheeks.  She  sat  before  me  in 
a  corner  of  the  group,  nearly  in  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Bailey's 
fine  statue  of  Eve  at  the  fountain,  and  apparently  equally  un- 
conscious that  she  was  naked.  As  I  looked  upon  her  for  a 
moment,  while  deeply  regretting  the  fate  of  her  mother,  the 
chief,  who  stood  by,  and  whose  hand  had  been  more  than 
once  laid  upon  my  cap,  as  if  to-  feel  whether  it  were  proof 
against  the  blow  of  a  waddy,  begged  me  to  accept  of  her  in 
exchange  for  a  tomahawk  ! " 

Eyre,  another  famous  early  traveller,  writes  on  this  topic 
(II., *  207-208). 

"  Occasionally,  though  rarely,  I  have  met  with  females  in 
the  bloom  of  youth,  whose  well-proportioned  limbs  and  sym- 
metry of  figure  might  have  formed  a  model  for  the  sculptor's 
chisel.  In  personal  appearance  the  females  are,  except  in 
early  youth,  very  far  inferior  to  the  men.  When  young, 
however,  they  are  not  uninteresting.  The  jet  black  eyes, 
shaded  by  their  long  dark  lashes,  and  the  delicate  and  scarcely 
formed  features  of  incipient  womanhood  give  a  soft  and  pleas- 
ing expression  to  a  countenance  that  might  often  be  called 
good-looking — occasionally  pretty." 

"  Occasionally,  though  rarely,"  and  then  only  for  a  few 
years,  is  an  Australian  woman  attractive  from  our  point  of 
view.  As  a  rule  she  is  very  much  the  reverse — dirty,  thin- 
limbed,  course-featured,  ungainly  in  every  way;1  and  Eyre 
tells  us  why  this  is  so.  The  extremities  of  the  women,  he 
says,  are  more  attenuated  than  those  of  the  men  ;  probably 
because  '*  like  most  other  savages,  the  Australian  looks  upon 
his  wife  as  a  slave,"  makes  her  undergo  great  privations  and 
do  all  the  hard  work,  such  as  bringing  in  wood  and  water, 
tending  the  children,  carrying  all  the  movable  property 
while  on  the  march,  often  even  her  husband's  weapons  : 

"  In  wet  weather  she  attends  to  all  the  outside  work, 
whilst  her  lord  and  master  is  snugly  seated  at  the  fire.  If 

1  See,  e.g.,  the  hideous  pictures  of  Australian  women  enclosed  in  G.  W.  Earl's 
The  Papuans.  Spencer  and  Gillen's  admirable  volume  also  contains  pictures  of 
"  young  women  "  who  look  twice  their  age.  After  the  age  of  twenty,  the 
authors  write,  the  face  becomes  wrinkled,  the  breasts  pendulous,  the  whole 
body  shrivelled.  At  fifty  they  reach  "  a  stage  of  ugliness  which  baffled  descrip- 
tion "  (40,  40). 


418  ABORIGINAL  AUSTRALIAN  LOVE 

there  is  a  scarcity  of  food,  she  has  to  endure  the  pangs  of 
hunger,  often,  perhaps,  in  addition  to  ill-treatment  and 
abuse.  No  wonder,  then,  that  the  females,  and  especially  the 
younger  ones  (for  it  is  then  they  are  exposed  to  the  greatest 
hardships),  are  not  so  fully  or  so  roundly  developed  in  person 
as  the  men/' 

The  rule  that  races  admire  those  personal  characteristics 
which  climate  and  circumstances  have  impressed  on  them  is 
not  borne  out  among  Australians.  An  arid  soil  and  a  desic- 
'  eating  climate  make  them  thin  as  a  race,  but  they  do  not  ad- 
mire thinness.  "  Long-legged,"  "thin-legged,"  are  favorite 
terms  of  abuse  among  them,  and  Grey  once  heard  a  native 

sing  scornfully 

Oh,  what  a  leg, 

You  kangaroo-footed  churl ! 

Nor  is  it  beauty,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  that  attracts  them, 
but  fat,  as  in  Africa  and  the  Orient.  I  have  previously 
quoted  Brough  Smyth's  assertion  that  an  Australian  woman, 
however  old  and  ugly,  is  in  constant  danger  of  being  stolen  if 
she  is  fat.  That  women  have  the  same  standard  of  "  taste/' 
appears  from  the  statement  of  H.  E.  A.  Meyer  (189),  that  the 
principal  reason  why  the  men  anoint  themselves  with  grease 
and  ochre  is  that  it  makes  them  look  fat  and  "gives  them  an 
air  of  importance  in  the  eyes  of  the  women,  for  they  admire 
a  fat  man  however  ugly."  But  whereas  these  men  admire  a 
fat  woman  for  sensual  reasons,  the  women's  preference  is 
based  on  utilitarian  motives.  Low  as  their  reasoning  powers 
are,  they  are  shrewd  enough  to  reflect  that  a  man  who  is  in 
good  condition  proves  thereby  that  he  is  "  somebody  " — that 
he  can  hunt  and  will  be  able  to  bring  home  some  meat  for 
his  wife  too.  This  interpretation  is  borne  out  by  what  was 
said  on  a  previous  page  (278)  about  one  of  the  reasons  why 
corpulence  is  valued  in  Fiji,  and  also  by  an  amusing  incident 
related  by  the  eminent  Australian  explorer  George  Grey  (II., 
93).  He  had  reproached  his  native  guide  with  not  knowing 
anything,  when  the  guide  replied  : 

"  I  know  nothing  !     I  know  how  to  keep  myself  fat ;  the 


CRUEL   TREATMENT   OF  WOMEN  419 

young  women  look  at  me  and  say,  '  Imbat  is  very  handsome, 
he  is  fat ' — they  will  look  at  you  and  say,  '  He  not  good — long 
legs — what  do  you  know  ?  Wheive  is  your  fat  ?  What  for 
do  you  know  so  much,  if  you  can't  keep  fat  ?  " 


CRUEL  TREATMENT   OF   WOMEN 

Eyre  was  no  doubt  right  in  his  suggestion  that  the  inferior- 
ity of  Australian  women  to  the  men  in  personal  appearance 
was  due  to  the  privations  and  hardships  to  which  the  women 
were  subjected.  Much  as  the  men  admire  fat  in  a  woman, 
they  are  either  too  ignorant,  or  too  selfish  otherwise,  to  allow 
them  to  grow  fat  in  idleness.  Women  in  Australia  never  ex- 
ist for  their  own  sake  but  solely  for  the  convenience  of  the 
men.  "  The  man/'  says  the  Kev.  H.  E.  A.  Meyer  (11), 
"  regarding  them  more  as  slaves  than  in  any  other  light,  em- 
ploys them  in  every  possible  way  to  his  own  advantage." 
"  The  wives  were  the  absolute  property  of  the  husband,"  says 
the  Kev.  G.  Taplin  (XVII.  to  XXXVII.),  "and  were  given 
away,  exchanged,  or  lent,  as  their  owners  saw  fit."  "  The 
poor  creatures  .  .  .  are  always  seen  to  a  disadvantage, 
being  .  .  .  the  slaves  of  their  husbands  and  of  the 
tribes."  ' '  The  women  in  all  cases  came  badly  off  when  they 
depended  upon  what  the  men  of  the  tribes  chose  to  give 
them." 

"  The  woman  is  an  absolute  slave.  She  is  treated  with  the 
greatest  cruelty  and  indignity,  has  to  do  all  laborious  work, 
and  to  carry  all  the  burthens.  For  the  slightest  offence  or  de- 
reliction of  duty,  she  is  beaten  with  a  waddy  or  a  yam-stick, 
and  not  unfrequently  speared.  The  records  of  the  Supreme 
Court  in  Adelaide  furnish  numberless  instances  of  blacks 
being  tried  for  murdering  their  lubras.  The  woman's  life  is  of 
no  account  if  her  husband  chooses  to  destroy  it,  and  no  one 
ever  attempts  to  protect  or  take  her  part  under  any  circum- 
stances. In  times  of  scarcity  of  food,  she  is  the  last  to  be 
fed  and  the  last  considered  in  any  way.  That  many  of  them 
die  in  consequence  cannot  be  a  matter  of  wonder. 
The  condition  of  the  women  has  no  influence  over  their  treat- 
ment, and  a  pregnant  female  is  dealt  with  and  is  expected  to 
do  as  much  as  if  she  were  in  perfect  health.  .  .  .  The 
condition  of  the  native  women  is  wretched  and  miserable  in 


420  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

the  extreme  ;  in  fact,  in  no  savage  nation  of  which  there  is 
any  record  can  it  be  any  worse."  And  again  (p.  72)  :  "The 
men  think  nothing  of  thrashing  their  wives,  knocking  them 
on  the  head,  and  inflicting  frightful  gashes  ;  but  they  nevei 
beat  the  boys.  And  the  sons  treat  their  mothers  very  badly. 
Very  often  mere  lads  will  not  hesitate  to  strike  and  throw 
stones  at  them." 

"  Women,"  says  Eyre  (322),  ' '  are  frequently  beaten  about 
the  head  with  waddies,  in  the  most  dreadful  manner,  or 
speared  in  the  limbs  for  the  most  trivial  offences."  There  is 
hardly  one,  he  says,  that  has  not  some  frightful  scars  on  the 
body;  and  he  saw  one  who  "appeared  to  have  been  almost 
riddled  with  spear-wounds."  "  Does  a  native  meet  a  woman 
in  the  woods  and  violate  her,  he  is  not  the  one  to  feel  the 
vengeance  of  the  husband,  but  the  poor  victim  whom  he  has 
abused "  (387).  "  Women  surprised  by  strange  blacks  are 
always  abused  and  often  massacred  "  (Curr,  I.,  108).  "A 
black  hates  intensely  those  of  his  own  race  with  whom  lie  is 
unacquainted,  always  excepting  the  females.  To  one  of  these 
he  will  become  attached  if  he  succeeds  in  carrying  one  off ; 
otherwise  he  will  kill  the  women  out  of  mere  savagetiess  and 
hatred  of  their  husbands"  (86).  "Whenever  they  can, 
blacks  in  their  wild  state  never  neglect  to  massacre  all  male 
strangers  who  fall  into  their  power.  Females  are  ravished, 
and  often  slain  afterward  if  they  cannot  be  conveniently 
carried  off."  The  natives  of  Victoria  "often  break  to  pieces 
their  six-feet-long  sticks  on  the  heads  of  the  women  "  (Waitz, 
VI.,  775).  "  In  the  case  of  a  man  killing  his  own  gin  [wife], 
he  has  to  deliver  up  one  of  his  own  sisters  for  his  late  wife's 
friends  to  put  to  death"  (W.  E.  Roth,  141).  After  a  war, 
when  peace  is  patched  up,  it  sometimes  happens  that  "  the 
weaker  party  give  some  nets  and  women  to  make  matters 
up"  (Curr,  II.,  477).  In  the  same  volume  (331)  we  find  a 
realistic  picture  of  masculine  selfishness  at  home  : 

"  When  the  mosquitoes  are  bad,  the  men  construct  with 
forked  sticks  driven  into  the  ground  rude  bedsteads,  on 
which  they  sleep,  a  fire  being  made  underneath  to  keep  off 
with  its  smoke  the  troublesome  insects.  No  bedsteads, 


CRUEL   TREATMENT   OF   WOMEN  411 

however,  fall  to  the  share  of  the  Women,  whose  business  it  is 
to  keep  the  fires  burning  whilst  their  lords  sleep/' 

Concerning  woman  in  the  lower  Murray  tribes,  Bulmer 
says1  that  "  on  the  journey  her  lord  would  coolly  walk  along 
with  merely  his  war  implements,  weighing  only  a  few  pounds, 
while  his  wife  was  carrying  perhaps  sixty  pounds." 

The  lives  of  the  women  "are  rated  as  of  the  less  value 
than  those  of  the  mefn."  "  Their  corpses  are  often  thrown  to 
dogs  for  food"  (Waitz,  VI.,  775).  "These  poor  creatures," 
says  Wilkinson  of  the  South  Australian  women  (322),  "are  in 
an  abject  state,  and  are  only  treated  with  about  the  same 
consideration  as  the  dogs  tha,t  accompany  them  ;  they  are  ob- 
liged to  give  any  food  that  may  be  desired  to  the  men,  and 
sit  and  see  them  eat  it,  considering  themselves  amply  repaid 
if  they  are  rewarded  by  having  a  piece  of  gizzle,  or  any  other 
leavings,  pitched  to  them."  J.  S.  Wood  (71)  relates  this 
characteristic  story  : 

"A  native  servant  was  late  in  keeping  his  appointment 
with  his  master,  and,  on  inquiry,  it  was  elicited  that  he  had 
just  quarrelled  with  one  of  his  wives,  and  had  speared  her 
through  the  body.  On  being  rebuked  by  his  master,  he 
turned  off  the  matter  with  a  laugh,  merely  remarking  that 
white  men  had  only  one  wife,  whereas  he  had  two,  and  did 
not  mind  losing  one  till  he  could  buy  another." 

Stiirt.  who  made  two  exploring  expeditions  (1829-1831), 
wrote  (II.,  55)  that  the  men  oblige  their  women  to  procure 
their  own  food,  or  they  "  throw  to  them  over  their  shoulders 
the  bones  they  have  already  picked,  with  a  nonchalance  that 
is  extremely  amusing."  The  women  are  also  excluded  from 
religious  ceremonies  ;  many  of  the  best  things  to  eat  are  taboo 
to  them  ;  and  the  cruel  contempt  of  the  men  pursues  them 
even  after  death.  The  men  are  buried  with  ceremony  (Curr, 
I.,  89),  but  "as  the  women  and  children  are  held  to  be  very 
inferior  to  the  men  whilst  alive,  and  their  spirits  are  but 
little  feared  after  death,  they  are  interred  with  but  scant 
ceremony  .  .  .  the  women  alone  wailing."  Thus  they 

1  Royal  Oeogr.  Soc  of  Australasia,  1887,  Vol.  V.,  29. 


422  ABORIGINAL  AUSTRALIAN  LOVE 

show  their  contempt  even  for  the  ghosts  of  women,  though 
they  are  so  afraid  of  other  ghosts  that  they  never  leave  camp 
in  the  dark  or  have  a  nocturnal  dance  except  by  moonlight 
or  with  big  fires  ! 


WERE   SAVAGES   CORRUPTED   BY  WHITES  ? 

Such  is  the  Australian's  treatment  of  woman — a  treatment 
so  selfish,  so  inconsistent  with  the  altruistic  traits  and  im- 
pulses of  romantic  love — sympathy,  gallantry,  and  self-sacri- 
ficing affection,  not  to  speak  of  adoration  —  that  it  alone 
proves  him  incapable  of  so  refined  a  sentiment.  If  any  doubt 
remained,  it  would  be  removed  by  his  utter  inability  to  rise 
above  the  sensual  sphere.  The  Australian  is  absolutely  im- 
moral and  incredibly  licentious.  Here,  however,  we  are  con- 
fronted by  a  spectre  with  which  the  sentimentalists  try  to 
frighten  the  searchers  for  truth,  and  which  must  therefore 
be  exorcised  first.  They  grant  the  wantonness  of  savages, 
but  declare  that  it  is  "  due  chiefly  to  the  influence  of  civil- 
ization." This  is  one  of  the  favorite  subterfuges  of  Wester- 
marck,  who  resorts  to  it  again  and  again.  In  reference  to  the 
Australians  he  cites  what  Edward  Stephens  wrote  regarding 
the  former  inhabitants  of  the  Adelaide  Plains  : 

s<  Those  who  speak  of  the  natives  as  a  naturally  degraded 
race,  either  do  not  speak  from  experience,  or  they  judge 
them  by  what  they  have  become  when  the  abuse  of  intoxi- 
cants and  contact  with  the  most  wicked  of  the  white  race 
have  begun  their  deadly  work.  As  a  rule  to  which  there  are 
no  exceptions,  if  a  tribe  of  blacks  is  found  away  from  the 
white  settlement,  the  more  vicious  of  the  white  men  are  most 
anxious  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  natives,  and  that, 
too,  solely  for  purposes  of  immorality.  ...  I  saw  the 
natives  and  was  much  with  them  before  those  dreadful  im- 
moralities were  well  known  .  .  .  and  I  say  it  fearlessly, 
that  nearly  all  their  evils  they  owed  to  the  white  man's  im- 
morality and  to  the  white  man's  drink." 

Now  the  first  question  a  conscientious  truth-seeker  feels  in- 
clined to  ask  regarding  this  "  fearless "  Stephens  who  thus 
boldly  accuses  of  ignorance  all  those  who  hold  that  the  Aus- 


ABORIGINAL   HORRORS  423 

tralian  race  was  degraded  before  it  came  in  contact  with 
whites,  is,  "Who  is  he  and  what  are  his  qualifications  for  serv- 
ing as  a  witness  in  this  matter  ?  "  He  is,  or  was,  a  simple- 
minded  settler,  kindly,  no  doubt,  who  for  some  inscrutable 
reason  was  allowed  to  contribute  a  paper  to  the  Journal  of 
the  Royal  Society  of  New  South  Wales  (Vol.  XXXIII.).  His 
qualifications  for  appearing  as  an  expert  in  Australian  anthro- 
pology may  be  inferred  from  various  remarks  in  his  paper. 
He  naively  tells  a  story  about  a  native  who  killed  an  opos- 
sum, and  after  eating  the  meat,  threw  the  intestines  to  his 
wife.  "  Ten  years  before  that,"  he  adds,  "  that  same  man 
would  have  treated  his  wife  as  himself."  Yet  we  have  just 
seen  that  all  the  explorers,  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  found 
that  the  natives  who  had  never  seen  a  white  man  treated 
their  women  like  slaves  and  dogs. 

ABORIGINAL   HORRORS 

If  the  savage  learned  his  wantonness  from  the  whites,  did 
he  get  all  his  other  vicious  habits  from  the  same  source  ? 
We  know  on  the  best  authorities  that  the  disgusting  practice 
of  cannibalism  prevailed  extensively  among  the  natives. 
"  They  eat  the  young  men  when  they  die,  and  the  young 
women  if  they  are  fat "  (Curr,  III.,  147).  Lumholtz  entitled 
his  book  on  Australia  Among  Cannibals.  The  Rev.  G. 
Taplin  says  (XV.)  :  "  Among  the  Dieyerie  tribe  cannibalism 
is  the  universal  practice,  and  all  who  die  are  indiscriminately 
devoured  .  .  .  the  mother  eats  the  flesh  of  her  children, 
and  the  children  that  of  their  mother/'  etc.  "If  a  man  had 
a  fat  wife,"  says  the  same  writer  (2),  "  he  was  always  partic- 
ularly careful  not  to  leave  her  unprotected,  lest  she  might  be 
seized  by  prowling  cannibals."  Among  the  wilder  tribes 
few  women  are  allowed  to  die  a  natural  death,  "  they  being 
generally  despatched  ere  they  become  old  and  emaciated,  that 
so  much  good  food  may  not  be  lost."1  Would  the  "fear- 
less" Stephens  say  that  the  natives  learned  these  practices 
from  the  whites  ?  Would  he  say  they  learned  from  the 

1  Trans.  Ethn.  Soc.,  New  Ser.,  ILL,  248,  288;  cited  by  Spencer,  D.  S.,  26. 


424  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

whites  the  "  universal  custom  ...  to  slay  every  unpro- 
tected male  stranger  met  with  "  (Curr,  I.,  133)  ? 

"  Infanticide  is  very  common,  and  appears  to  be  practised 
solely  to  get  rid  of  the  trouble  of  rearing  children,"  wrote 
Eyre  (II.,  324).  Curr  (I.,  76)  heard  that  "some  tribes  within 
the  area  of  the  Central  Division  cut  off  the  nipples  of  the 
females7  breasts,  in  some  instances,  for  the  purpose  of  render- 
ing their  rearing  of  children  impossible."  On  the  Mitchell 
River,  "  children  were  killed  for  the  most  trivial  offences,  such 
as  for  accidentally  breaking  a  weapon  as  they  trotted  about 
the  camp  "  (Curr,  II.,  403).  Twins  are  destroyed  in  South 
Australia,  says  Leigh  (159),  and  if  the  mother  dies  "  they 
throw  the  living  infant  into  the  grave,  while  infanticide  is  an 
every-day  occurrence."  Curr  (I.,  70)  believes  that  the  aver- 
age number  of  children  borne  by  each  woman  was  six,  the  max- 
imum ten  ;  but  of  all  these  only  two  boys  and  one  girl  as  a 
rule  were  kept,  "  the  rest  were  destroyed  immediately  after 
birth,"  as  we  destroy  litters  of  puppies.  Sometimes  the  in- 
fants were  smothered  over  a  fire  (Waitz,  VI.,  779),  and  de- 
formed children  were  always  killed.  Taplin  (13)  writes  that 
before  his  colony  was  established  among  them  infanticide 
was  very  prevalent  among  the  natives.  "  One  intelligent 
woman  said  she  thought  that  if  the  Europeans  had  waited  a 
few  more  years  they  would  have  found  the  country  without  in- 
habitants." Strangulation,  a  blow  of  the  waddy,  or  filling 
the  eurs  with  red  hot  embers,  were  the  favorite  ways  of  killing 
their  own  babies. 

Did  the  whites  teach  the  angelic  savages  all  these  diabolical 
customs  ?  Jf  so,  they  must  have  taught  them  customs  in- 
vented for  the  occasion,  since  they  are  not  practised  by  whites 
in  any  part  of  the  world.  But  perhaps  Stephens  would  have 
been  willing  to  waive  this  point.  Sentimentalists  are  usually 
more  or  less  willing  to  concede  that  savages  are  devils  in  most 
things  if  we  will  only  admit  in  return  that  they  are  angels  in 
their  sexual  relations.  For  instance,  if  we  may  believe 
Stephens,  no  nun  was  ever  more  modest  than  the  native  Aus- 
tralian woman.  Once,  he  says,  he  was  asked  to  visit  a  poor 
old  black  woman  in  the  last  stages  of  consumption  : 


NAKED  AND  NOT  ASHAMED       425 

"  Her  case  was  hopeless,  and  when  she  was  in  almost  the 
last  agony  of  mortal  dissolution  I  was  astounded  at  her  ef- 
forts at  concealment,  indicative  of  extreme  modesty.  As  I 
drew  her  opossum  rug  over  her  poor  emaciated  body  the 
look  of  gratitude  which  came  from  her  dying  eyes  told  me  in 
language  more  eloquent  than  words  that  beneath  that  dark 
and  dying  exterior  there  was  a  soul  which  in  a  few  hours 
angels  would  delight  to  honor." 

The  poor  woman  was  probably  cold  and  glad  to  be  covered  ; 
if  she  had  any  modesty  regarding  exposure  of  the  body  she 
could  have  learned  it  from  no  one  but  the  dreadful,  degraded 
whites,  for  the  Australian  himself  is  an  utter  stranger  to  such 
a  feeling.  On  this  point  the  explorers  and  students  of  the 
natives  are  unanimous.  Both  men  and  women  went  absolutely 
naked  except  in  those  regions  where  the  climate  was  cold. 


NAKED   AND   NOT   ASHAMED 

"  They  are  as  innocent  of  shame  as  the  animals  of  the  for- 
est," says  E.  Palmer ;  and  J.  Bonwick  writes  :  "  Nakedness 
is  no  shame  with  them.  As  a  French  writer  once  remarked 
to  a  lady,  '  With  a  pair  of  gloves  you  could  clothe  six  men.'* 
Even  ornaments  are  worn  by  the  men  only  :  "  females  are 
content  with  their  natural  charms."  W.  E.  Roth,  in  his 
standard  work  on  the  Queensland  natives,  says  that  "  with 
both  sexes  the  privates  are  only  covered  on  special  public  oc- 
casions, or  when  in  close  proximity  to  white  settlements." 
With  the  Warburton  River  tribe  (Curr,  II.,  18)  "  the  women 
go  quite  naked,  and  the  men  have  only  a  belt  made  of  human 
hair  round  the  waist  from  which  a  fringe  spun  of  hair  of 
rats  hangs  in  front."  Sturt  wrote  (I.,  106):  "The  men 
are  much  better  looking  than  the  women  ;  both  go  perfectly 
naked." 

At  the  dances  a  covering  of  feathers  or  leaves  is  sometimes 
worn  by  the  women,  but  is  removed  as  soon  as  the  dance  is 
over.  Narrinyeri  girls,  says  Taplin  (15),  "  wear  a  sort  of 
apron  of  fringe,  called  Kaininggi,  until  they  bear  their  first 
child.  If  they  have  no  children  it  is  taken  from  them  and 


426  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

burned  by  their  husbands  while  they  are  asleep."  Meyer 
(189)  says  the  same  of  the  Encounter  Bay  tribe,  and  similar 
customs  prevailed  at  Port  Jackson  and  many  other  places. 
Summing. up  the  observations  of  Cook,  Turnbull,  Cunning- 
ham,, Tench,  Hunter,  and  others,  Waitz  remarks  (VI.,  737)  : 
"  In  the  region  of  Sydney,  too,  the  natives  used  to  be  entirely 
nude,  and  as  late  as  1816  men  would  go  about  the  streets  of 
Paramatta  and  Sydney  naked,  despite  many  prohibitions  and 
attempts  to  clothe  them,  which  always  failed  " — so  ingrained 
was  the  absence  of  shame  in  the  native  mind.  Jackman,  the 
"  Australian  Captive,"  an  Englishman  who  spent  seventeen 
months  among  the  natives,  describes  them  as  being  "as  nude 
as  Adam  and  Eve"  (99).  "The  Australians'  utter  lack  of 
modesty  is  remarkable,"  writes  F.  Miiller  (207)  ;  "it  reveals 
itself  in  the  way  in  which  their  clothes  are  worn.  While  an 
attempt  is  made  to  cover  the  upper,  especially  the  back 
part  of  the  body,  the  private  parts  are  often  left  uncovered." 
One  early  explorer,  Sturt  (II.,  126),  found  the  natives  of  the 
interior,  without  exception,  "in  a  complete  state  of  nu- 
dity." 

The  still  earlier  Governor  Philipps  (1787)  found  that  the  in- 
habitants of  New  South  Wales  had  no  idea  that  one  part  of 
the  body  ought  to  be  covered  more  than  any  other.  Captain 
Flinders,  who  saw  much  of  Australia  in  1795,  speaks  in  one 
place  (I.,  66)  of  "  the  short  skin  cloak  which  is  of  kangaroo, 
and  worn  over  the  shoulders,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  body 
naked."  This  was  in  New  South  Wales.  At  Keppel  Bay 
(II.,  30)  he  writes:  "  These  people  ...  go  entirely 
naked  ; "  and  so  on  at  other  points  of  the  continent  touched 
on  his  voyage.  In  Dawson  (61)  we  read  :  "  They  were  per- 
fectly naked,  as  they  always  are."  Nor  has  the  Australian 
in  his  native  state  changed  in  the  century  or  more  since  whites 
have  known  him.  In  the  latest  book  on  Central  Australia 
(1899)  by  Spencer  and  Gillen  we  read  (17)  that  to  this  day  a 
native  woman  "with  nothing  on  except  an  ancient  straw  hat 
and  an  old  pair  of  boots  is  perfectly  happy." 


IS   CIVILIZATION   DEMORALIZING?  427 


IS   CIVILIZATION   DEMORALIZING? 

The  reader  is  now  in  a  position  to  judge  of  the  reliability 
of  the  "  fearless"  Stephens  as  a  witness,  and  of  the  blind 
bias  of  the  anthropologist  who  uses  him  as  such.  It  surely 
ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  prove  that  races  among  whom 
cannibalism,  infanticide,  wife  enslavement  and  murder,  and 
other  hideous  crimes  are  rampant  as  nnreproved  national  cus- 
toms, could  not  possibly  be  refined  and  moral  in  their  sexual 
relations,  which  offer  the  greatest  of  all  temptations  to  unre- 
strained selfishness.  Yet  Stephens  tells  us  in  his  article  that 
before  the  advent  of  the  whites  these  people  were  chaste,  and 
"conjugal  infidelity  was  almost  if  not  entirely  unknown  ;" 
while  Westermarck  (61,  64,  65)  classes  the  Australians  with 
those  savages  "  among  whom  sexual  intercourse  out  of  wed- 
lock is  of  rare  occurrence."  On  page  70  he  declares  that 
"in  a  savage  condition  of  life  .  .  .  there  is  compara- 
tively little  reason  for  illegitimate  relations  ; "  and  on  page 
539,  in  summing  up  his  doctrines,  he  asserts  that  "we  have 
some  reason  to  believe  that  irregular  connections  between  the 
sexes  have,  on  the  whole,  exhibited  a  tendency  to  increase 
along  with  the  progress  of  civilization."  The  refutation  of  this 
libel  on  civilization — which  is  widely  believed — is  one  of  the 
main  objects  of  the  following  pages — is,  in  fact,  one  of  the 
main  objects  of  this  whole  volume. 

There  are  a  few  cities  in  Southern  Europe  where  the  rate 
of  illegitimacy  equals,  and  in  one  or  two  cases  slightly  ex- 
ceeds, the  legitimate  births ;  but  that  is  owing  to  the  fact  that 
betrayed  girls  from  the  country  nearly  always  go  to  the  cities 
to  find  a  refuge  and  hide  their  shame.  Taking  the  countries 
as  a  whole  we  find  that  even  Scotland,  which  has  always  had 
a  somewhat  unsavory  reputation  in  this  respect,  had,  in  1897, 
only  6.98  per  cent,  of  illegitimate  births — say  seven  in  a 
hundred ;  the  highest  rate  since  1855  having  been  10.2. 
There  are,  of  course,  besides  this,  cases  of  uncertain  paternity, 
but  their  number  is  comparatively  small,  and  it  certainly  is 
much  larger  in  the  less  civilized  countries  of  Europe  than  in 


428  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

the  more  civilized.  Taking  the  five  or  six  most  advanced 
countries  of  Europe  and  America,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
paternity  is  certain  in  ninety  cases  out  of  a  hundred.  If  we 
now  look  at  the  Australians  as  described  by  eye-witnesses 
since  the  earliest  exploring  tours,  we  find  a  state  of  affairs 
which  makes  paternity  uncertain  in  all  cases  ivithout  excep- 
tion, and  also  a  complete  indifference  on  the  subject. 


ABORIGINAL   WANTONNESS 

One  of  the  first  explorers  of  the  desert  interior  was  Eyre 
(1839).  His  experiences— covering  ten  years — led  him  to 
speak  (378)  of  "  the  illicit  and  almost  unlimited  intercourse 
between  the  sexes."  "  Marriage  is  not  looked  upon  as  any 
pledge  of  chastity ;  indeed,  no  such  virtue  is  recognized " 
(319).  "  Many  of  the  native  dances  are  of  a  grossly  licentious 
character/'  Men  rarely  get  married  before  they  are  twenty- 
five,  but  that  does  not  mean  that  they  are  continent.  From 
their  thirteenth  year  they  have  promiscuous  intercourse  with 
girls  who  abandon  themselves  at  the  age  of  ten,  though  they 
rarely  become  mothers  before  they  are  sixteen.1 

Another  early  explorer  of  the  interior  (1839),  T.  L.  Mitchell, 
gives  this  glimpse  of  aboriginal  morality  (I.,  133)  : 

"  The  natives  ...  in  return  for  our  former  disinter- 
ested kindness,  persisted  in  their  endeavors  to  introduce  us 
very  particularly  to  their  women.  They  ordered  them  to 
come  up,  divested  of  their  cloaks  and  bags,  and  placed  them 
before  us.  Most  of  the  men  appeared  to  possess  two,  the  pair 
in  general  consisting  of  a  fat  plump  gin  and  one  much 
younger.  Each  man  placed  himself  before  his  gins,  and 
bowing  forward  with  a  shrug,  the  hands  and  arms  being 
thrown  back  pointing  to  each  gin,  as  if  to  say,  Take  which 
you  please.  The  females,  on  their  part,  evinced  no  appre- 
hension, but  seemed  to  regard  us  as  beings  of  a  race  sodiffer- 

1  He  adds  in  a  foot-note  (320)  :  "Fceminae  sese  per  totam  psene  vitam  prosti- 
tunnt.  Apud  plurimas  tribus  juventutem  utriusque  sexus  sine  discrimine  con- 
eumbere  in  usu  est.  Si  juvenis  forte  indigenorum  coetum  quendam  in  castris 
manentem  adveniat  ubi  quaevis  sit  puella  innupta,  mos  est  nocte  veniente  et 
cuban tibus  omnibus,  illam  ex  loco  exsurgere  et  juvenem  accedentern  cum  illo  per 
noctem  manere  unde  in  sedein  propriam  ante  diem  redit.  Cui  feniina  est, 
earn  amicis  libenter  prsebet." 


ABORIGINAL   WANTONNESS  429 

ent,  without  the  slightest  indication  of  either  fear,  aversion, 
or  surprise.  Their  looks  were  rather  expressive  of  a  ready 
acquiescence  in  the  proffered  kindness  of  the  men,  and  when 
at  length  they  brought  a  sable  nymph  vis-a-vis  to  Mr.  White, 
I  could  preserve  my  gravity  no  longer,  and  throwing  the 
spears  aside,  I  ordered  the  bullock-drivers  to  proceed." 

George  Grey,  who,  during  his  two  exploring  expeditions 
into  Northwestern  and  Western  Australia,  likewise  came  in 
contact  with  the  "uncontaminated "  natives,  found  that, 
though  "a  spear  through  the  calf  of  the  leg  is  the  least 
punishment  that  awaits"  a  faithless  wife  if  detected,  and 
sometimes  the  death-penalty  is  inflicted,  yet  "the  younger 
women  were  much  addicted  to  intrigue"  (I.,  231,  253),  as 
indeed  they  appear  to  be  throughout  the  continent,  as  we 
shall  see  presently. 

Of  all  Australian  institutions  none  is  more  characteristic 
than  the  corrobborees  or  nocturnal  dances  which  are  held  at 
intervals  by  the  various  tribes  all  over  the  continent,  and  were 
of  course  held  centuries  before  a  white  man  was  ever  seen  on 
the  continent  ;  and  no  white  man  in  his  wildest  nightmare 
ever  dreamt  of  such  scenes  as  are  enacted  at  them.  They  are 
given  preferably  by  moonlight,  are  apt  to  last  all  night,  and 
are  often  attended  by  the  most  obscene  and  licentious  prac- 
tices. The  corrobboree,  says  Curr  (I.,  92),  was  undoubtedly 
"  often  an  occasion  of  licentiousness  and  atrocity  "  ;  fights, 
even  wars,  ensue,  "and  almost  invariably  as  the  result  of 
outrages  on  women."  The  songs  heard  at  these  revels  are 
sometimes  harmless  and  the  dances  not  indecent,  says  the 
Rev.  G.  Taplin  (37),  "  but  at  other  times  the  songs  will  con- 
sist of  the  vilest  obscenity.  I  have  seen  dances  which  were 
the  most  disgusting  displays  of  obscene  gesture  possible  to  be 
imagine^,  and  although  I  stood  in  the  dark  alone,  and  no- 
body knew  I  was  there,  I  felt  ashamed  to  look  upon  such 
abominations.  .  .  .  The  dances  of  the  women  are  very 
immodest  and  lewd."  John  Mathew  (in  Curr,  III.,  168) 
testifies  regarding  the  corrobborees  of  the  Mary  River  tribes 
that 

"  the  representations  were  rarely  free  from  obscenity,  and  on 


430  ABORIGINAL  AUSTRALIAN  LOVE 

some  occasions  indecent  gestures  were  the  main  parts  of  the 
action.  I  have  seen  a  structure  formed  of  huge  forked  sticks 
placed  upright  in  the  ground,  the  forks  upward,  with  sap- 
lings reaching  from  fork  to  fork,  and  boughs  laid  over  all. 
This  building  was  part  of  the  machinery  for  a  corrobboree,  at 
a  certain  stage  of  which  the  males,  who  were  located  on  the 
roof,  rushed  down  among  the  females,  who  were  underneath, 
and  handled  them  licentiously." l 


LOWER  THAN   BRUTES 

The  lowest  depth  of  aboriginal  degradation  remains  to  be 
sounded.  Like  most  of  the  Africans,  Australians  are  lower 
than  animals  inasmuch  as  they  often  do  not  wait  till  girls 
have  reached  the  age  of  puberty.  Meyer  (190)  says  of  the 
Narrinyeri :  "  They  are  given  in  marriage  at  a  very  early  age 
(ten  or  twelve  years)."  Lindsay  Cranford2  testifies  regard- 
ing five  South  Australian  tribes  that  "  at  puberty  no  girl,  with- 
out exception,  is  a  virgin."  With  the  Paroo  River  tribes 
"  the  girls  became  wives  whilst  mere  children,  and  mothers 
at  fourteen"  (Curr,  II.,  182).  Of  other  tribes  Curr's  corre- 
spondents write  (107)  :  "  Girls  become  wives  at  from  eight  to 
fourteen  years."  "One  often  sees  a  child  of  eight  the  wife 
of  a  man  of  fifty."  "  Girls  are  promised  to  men  in  infancy, 
become  wives  at  about  ten  years  of  age,  and  mothers  at  four- 
teen or  fifteen "  (342).  The  Birria  tribe  waits  a  few  years 
longer,  but  atones  for  this  by  a  resort  to  another  crime  : 
"  Males  and  females  are  married  at  from  fourteen  to  sixteen, 
but  are  not  allowed  to  rear  children  until  they  get  to  be  about 
thirty  years  of  age  ;  hence  infanticide  is  general."  The  mis- 
sionary 0.  W.  Schiirmann  says  of  the  Port  Lincoln  tribe  (223) : 

»  F.  Miiller  (212-13)  gives  the  details  of  West  Australian  corrobborees  which 
are  too  obscene  to  be  cited  here.  See  also  the  testimony  in  Hellwald  (134-35) 
based  on  the  observations  of  Oldfield,  Kuler,  M'Combie,  etc. ,  and  a  number  of 
other  authorities  cited  by  Waitz-Gerland,  VI.,  754-55.  Curr  says  (I.,  128)  that 
at  the  corrobborees  men  of  different  tribes  lend  their  wives  to  each  other. 

2  Journal  Anthrop.  Inst..  XXIV.,  169.  See  also  Waitz,  VI.,  774;  Macgilli- 
vray,  II. ,  8 ;  Hasskari,  82.  They  have  a  peculiar  rattle  with  mystic  sculpturing, 
and  Eyre  says  that  its  sound  libertatem  coeundi  juventuti  esse  turn  concessam 
omnibus  indicat.  Maclennan  (287)  cites  G.  S.  Lang,  who  cites  the  fact  that  the 
old  men  get  most  of  the  young  women.  Connubium  profecto  valde  est  liberum. 
Conjuges,  puellae,  puellulce  cum  adolescentibns  venantur.  Pretium  corporis 
poene  nulliua  est.  Vendunt  se  vel  columbae  vel  canis  vel  piscis  pretio.  Inter 
Anglos  et  aborigines  nihil  distat. 


INDIFFERENCE   TO   CHASTITY  431 

"  Notwithstanding  the  early  marriage  of  females,  I  have  not 
observed  that  they  have  children  at  an  earlier  age  than  is 
common  among  Europeans."  Of  York  district  tribes  we  are 
told  (I.,  343)  that  "girls  are  betrothed  shortly  after  birth, 
and  brutalities  are  practised  on  them  while  mere  children." 
Of  the  Kojonub  tribe  (348) :  "  Girls  are  promised  in  marriage 
soon  after  birth,  and  given  over  to  their  husbands  at  about 
nine  years  of  age."  Of  the  Natingero  tribe  (380)  :  "  The 
girls  go  to  live  with  their  husbands  at  from  seven  to  ten  years, 
and  suffer  dreadfully  from  intercourse."  Of  the  Yircla  Meen- 
ing  tribe  (402)  :  "  Females  become  wives  at  ten  and  mothers 
at  twelve  years  of  age."  "  Mr.  J.  M.  Davis  and  others  of 
repute  declare,  as  a  result  of  long  acquaintance  with  Austra- 
lian savages,  that  the  girls  were  made  use  of  for  promiscu- 
ous intercourse  when  they  were  only  nine  or  ten  years  old." 
(Sutherland,  I.,  113.)  It  is  needless  to  continue  this  painful 
catalogue. 

INDIFFERENCE   TO  CHASTITY 

Eyre's  assertion  regarding  chastity,  that  "  no  such  virtue 
is  recognized,"  has  already  been  quoted,  and  is  borne  out  by 
testimony  of  many  other  writers.  In  the  Dieyerie  tribe  "  each 
married  woman  is  permitted  a  paramour."  (Curr,  II.,  46.) 
Taplin  says  of  the  Narrinyeri  (16,  18)  that  boys  are  not  al- 
lowed to  ma-rry  until  their  beard  has  grown  a  certain  length  ; 
"but  they  are  allowed  the  abominable  privilege  of  promiscu- 
ous intercourse  with  the  younger  portion  of  the  other  sex." 
A.W.  Howitt  describes^  strange  kind  of  group  marriage 
prevalent  among  the  Dieri  and  kindred  tribes,  the  various 
couples  being  allotted  to  each  other  by  the  council  of  elder 
men  without  themselves  being  consulted  as  to  their  prefer- 
ences. During  the  ensuing  festivities,  however,  "there  is 
for  about  four  hours  a  general  license  in  camp  as  regards  " 
the  couples  thus  "  married."  Meyer  (191)  says  of  the  En- 
counter Bay  tribes  that  if  a  man  from  another  tribe  arrives 
having  anything  which  a  native  desires  to  purchase,  "  he  per- 

»  Journal  Anthrop.  Inst.,  XX.,  53. 


432  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

Imps  makes  a  bargain  to  pay  by  letting  him  have  one  of  his 
wives  for  a  longer  or  shorter  period."  Angas  (I.,  93)  refers 
to  the  custom  of  lending  wives.  In  Victoria  the  natives  have 
a  special  name  for  the  custom  of  lending  one  of  their  wives 
to  young  men  who  have  none.  Sometimes  they  are  thus  lent 
for  a  month  at  a  time.1  As  we  shall  presently  see,  one  reason 
why  Australian  men  marry  is  to  have  the  means  of  making 
friends  by  lending  their  wives  to  others.  The  custom  of 
allowing  friends  to  share  the  husband's  privileges  was  also 
widely  prevalent. 

In  New  South  Wales  and  about  Riverina,  says  Brough 
Smyth  (II.,  316),  "in  any  instance  where  the  abduction  [of 
a  woman]  has  taken  place  by  a  party  of  men  for  the  benefit 
of  some  one  individual,  each  of  the  members  of  the  party 
claims,  as  a  right,  a  privilege  which  the  intended  husband 
has  no  power  to  refuse."  Curr  informs  us  (I.,  128)  that  if 
a  woman  resist  her  husband's  orders  to  give  herself  up  to  an- 
other man  she  is  "either  speared  or  cruelly  beaten."  Fison 
(303)  believes  that  the  lending  of  wives  to  visitors  was  looked 
on  npt  as  a  favor  but  a  duty — a  right  which  the  visitor  could 
claim  ;  and  Howitt  showed  that  in  the  native  gesture  lan- 
guage there  was  a  special  sign  for  this  custom — "a  peculiar 
folding  of  the  hands,"  indicating  "either  a  requestor  an 
offer,  according  as  it  is  used  by  the  guest  or  the  host."  Con- 
cerning Queensland  tribes  Roth  says  (182)  : 

"  If  an  aboriginal  requires  a  woman  temporarily  for  venery 
he  either  borrows  a  wife  from  her  husband  for  a  night  or  two 
in  exchange  for  boomerangs,  a  shield,  food,  etc.,  or  else  vio- 
lates the  female  when  unprotected,  when  away  from  the  camp 
out  in  the  bush.  In  the  former  case  the  husband  looks  upon 
the  matter  as  a  point  of  honor  to  oblige  his  friend,  the  great- 
est compliment  that  can  be  paid  him,  provided  that  permis- 
sion is  previously  asked.  On  the  other  hand,  were  he  to 
refuse  he  has  the  fear  hanging  over  him  tliat  the  petitioner 
might  get  a  death-bone  pointed  at  him — and  so,  after  all,  his 
apparent  courtesy  may  be  only  Hobson's  choice.  In  the  latter 

1  Revue  (VAnthropologie,  1882,  p.  370. 

2  A.  W.  Howitt,  Jour.    Anthr.    frist,  ,   XX.,  60-61.     Fison  and  Howitt,  289; 
Smithsonian  /fV/jorta,  1883,  p.  (57.     Details  are  given  which  cannot  be  repro- 
duced here.     Boys  participate  in  these  orgies. 


USELESS   PRECAUTIONS  433 

case,  if  a  married  woman,  and  she  tells  her  husband,  she  gets 
a  hammering,  and  should  she  disclose  the  delinquent,  there 
will  probably  be  a  fight,  and  hence  she  usually  keeps  her 
mouth  shut  ;  if  a  single  woman,  or  of  -any  paedomatronym 
other  than  his  own,  no  one  troubles  himself  about  the  matter. 
On  the  other  hand,  death  by  the  spear  or  club  is  the  punish- 
ment invariably  inflicted  by  the  camp  council  collectively  for 
criminally  assaulting  any  blood  relative,  group-sister  (i.e.,  a 
female  member  of  the  same  paedomatronym)  or  young  woman 
that  has  not  yet  been  initiated  into  the  first  degree." 

The  last  sentence  would  indicate  that  these  tribes  are  not 
so  indifferent  to  chastity  as  the  other  natives  ;  but  the  infor- 
mation given  by  Eoth  (who  for  three  years  was  surgeon- 
general  to  the  Boulia,  Cloncurry  and  Norman  ton  hospitals) 
dispels  such  an  illusion  most  radically.1 


USELESS    PRECAUTIONS 

In  Central  Australia,  says  II.  Kempe,2  t(  there  is  no  sepa- 
ration of  the  sexes  in  social  life  ;  in  the  daily  camp  routine 
as  well  as  at  festivals  all  the  natives  mingle  as  they  choose." 
Curr  asserts  (L,  109)  that  "  in  most  tribes  a  woman  is  not  al- 
lowed to  converse  or  have  any  relations  whatever  with  any 
adult  male,  save  her  husband.  Even  with  a  grown-up 
brother  she  is  almost  forbidden  to  exchange  a  word."  Grey 
(II.,  255)  found  that  at  dances  the  females  sat  in  groups 
apart  and  the  young  men  were  never  allowed  to  approach 
them  and  not  permitted  to  hold  converse  with  any  one  except 
their  mother  or  sisters.  "On  no  occasion,"  he  adds,  "  is  a 
strange  native  allowed  to  approach  the  fire  of  the  married." 
"The  young  men  and  boys  of  ten  years  of  age  and  upward 
are  obliged  to  sleep  in  their  portion  of  the  encampment." 

From  such  testimony  one  might  infer  that  female  chastity 

1  The  details  given  by  Roth  are  too  disgusting  for  reproduction  here.  They  vie 
with  the  loathsome  practices  of  the  Kaffirs  and  the  most  debauched  Roman 
emperors,  while  some  of  them  are  so  vile  that  it  seems  as  if  they  could  have 
be  n  suggested  only  by  the  diseased  brain  of  an  erotomaniac.  The  most  de- 
graded white  criminal  that  ever  took  up  his  abode  among  savages  would  turn 
away  from  them  with  horror  and  na-i-ea.  yet  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  the 
savages  learned  all  their  vines  from  the  whites  ! 

''Mittheil.  des  Ver.  fur  Erdkunde  zu  Halle,  1883,  54. 


434  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

is  successfully  guarded  ;  but  the  writers  quoted  themselves 
take  care  to  dispel  that  illusion.  Grey  tells  us  that  (in  spite 
of  these  arrangements)  "the  young  females  are  much  ad- 
dicted to  intrigue  ;  "  and  again  (248)  : 

"  Should  a  female  be  possessed  of  considerable  personal 
attractions,  the  first  years  of  her  life  must  necessarily  be  very 
unhappy.  In  her  early  infancy  she  is  betrothed  to  some  man, 
even  at  this  period  advanced  in  years,  and  by  whom,  as  she 
approaches  the  age  of  puberty,  she  is  watched  with  a  degree 
of  vigilance  and  care,  which  increases  in  proportion  to  the 
disparity  of  years  between  them  ;  it  is  probably  from  this 
circumstance  that  so  many  of  them  are  addicted  to  intrigues, 
in  which  if  they  are  detected  by  their  husbands,  death  or  a 
spear  through  some  portion  of  the  body  is  their  certain  fate." 

And  Curr  shows  in  the  following  (109)  how  far  the  at- 
tempts at  seclusion  are  from  succeeding  in  enforcing  chastity  : 

"  Notwithstanding  the  savage  jealousy,  varied  by  occasional 
degrading  complaisance  on  the  part  of  the  husband,  there  is 
more  or  less  intrigue  in  every  camp  ;  and  the  husband  usually 
assumes  that  his  wife  has  been  unfaithful  to  him  whenever 
there  has  been  an  opportunity  for  criminality.  ...  In 
some  tribes  the  husband  will  frequently  prostitute  his  wife 
to  his  brother  ;  otherwise  more  commonly  to  strangers  visit- 
ing his  tribe  than  to  his  own  people,  and  in  this  way  our 
exploring  parties  have  been  troubled  with  proposals  of  the 
sort." 

•  Apart  from  the  other  facts  here  given,  the  words  I  have 
italicized  above  would  alone  show  that  what  makes  an  Austra- 
lian in  some  instances  guard  his  females  is  not  a  regard  for 
chastity,  or  jealousy  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  but  simply  a 
desire  to  preserve  his  movable  property — a  slave  and  concu- 
bine who,  if  young  or  fat,  is  very  liable  to  be  stolen  or,  on 
account  of  the  bad  treatment  she  receives  from  her  old  mas- 
ter, to  run  away  with  a  younger  man.1 

1  Westermarck  overlooks  these  vital  facts  when  he  calmly  assumes  (64,  65) 
that  the  guarding  of  girls,  or  punishment  of  intruders,  argues  a  regard  for 
chastity.  His  entire  ignoring  of  the  superabundant  and  unimpeachable  testi- 
mony proving  the  contrary  is  extraordinary,  to  put  it  mildly.  Dawson's  asser- 
tion (83)  that  ''illegitimacy  is  rare"  and  the  mother  severely  pmrshed,  which 
Westermarck  cites  (65),  is  as  foolisb  as  most  of  the  gossip  printed  by  that 
utterly  untrustworthy  writer.  As  the  details  given  in  these  pages  regarding 


SURVIVALS   OF   PROMISCUITY  435 

If  any  further  evidence  were  needed  on  this  head  it  would 
be  supplied  by  the  authoritative  statement  of  J.  D.  Wood 1 
that  "  In  fact,  chastity  as  a  virtue  is  absolutely  unknown 
amongst  all  the  tribes  of  which  there  are  records.  The  buy- 
ing, taking,  or  stealing  of  a  wife  is  not  at  all  influenced  by 
considerations  of  antecedent  purity  on  the  part  of  the  woman. 
A  man  wants  a  wife  and  he  obtains  one  somehow.  She  is  his 
slave  and  there  the  matter  ends." 


SUKVIVALS  OF    PROMISCUITY 

Since  this  chapter  was  written  a  new  book  on  Australia  has 
appeared  which  bears  out  the  views  here  taken  so  admirably 
that  I  must  insert  a  brief  reference  to  its  contents.  It  is 
Spencer  and  Gillen's  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia 
(1899),  and  relates  to  nine  tribes  over  whom  Baldwin  Spencer 
had  been  placed  as  special  magistrate  and  sub-protector  for 
some  years,  during  which  he  had  excellent  opportunities  to 
study  their  customs.  The  authors  tell  us  (62,  63)  that 

"In  the  TJrabunna  tribe  every  woman  is  the  special  Nupa 
of  one  particular  man,  but  at  the  same  time  he  has  no  exclu- 
sive right  to  her,  as  she  is  the  Piraungaru  of  certain  other 
men  who  also  have  the  right  of  access  to  her.  .  .  .  There 
is  no  such  thing  as  one  man  having  the  exclusive  right  to 
one  woman.  .  .  .  Individual  marriage  does  not  exist 
either  in  name  or  in  practice  in  the  Urabunna  tribe."  "  Oc- 
casionally, but  rarely,  it  happens  that  a  man  attempts  to  pre- 
vent his  wife's  Piraungaru  from  having  access  to  her,  but 
this  leads  to  a  fight,  and  the  husband  is  looked  upon  as  churl- 
ish. When  visiting  distant  groups  where,  in  all  likelihood, 
the  husband  has  no  Piraungaru,  it  is  customary  for  other 

licentiousness  before  marriage  and  wife-lending  after  it  show,  there  is  no  pos- 
sible way  of  proving  illegitimacy  unless  the  child  has  a  white  father.  In  that 
case  it  is  killed ;  but  that  is  nothing  remarkable,  as  the  Australians  kill  most 
of  their  children  anyway.  That  a  regard  for  chastity  or  fidelity  has  nothing  to 
do  with  these  actions  is  proved  by  the  fact  cited  from  Curr  (I.,  110)  by  Wester- 
marck  himself  (on  another  page — 131 — of  course  !)  that  "husbands  display  much 
less  jealousy  of  white  men  than  of  those  of  their  own  color,"  and  that  they  will 
more  commonly  prostitute  their  wives  to  strangers  visiting  the  tribe  than  to 
their  own  people.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  simple  reason  of  this  is  that  the 
whites  are  better  able  to  pay,  in  rum  and  trinkets. 

1  South  Australia,  Adelaide,  18(/4,  p.  4U-J.  The  part  author,  part  editor  of 
this  valuable  book  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  J.  S.  Wood,  the  compiler  of  the 
Natural  History  of  Man. 


436  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

men  of  his  own  class  to  offer  him  the  loan  of  one  or  more  of 
their  Nupa  women,  and  a  man,  besides  lending  a  woman  over 
whom  he  has  the  first  right,  will  also  lend  his  Piraungaru." 

In  the  Arunta  tribe  there  is  a  restriction  of  a  particular 
woman  to  a  particular  man,  "  or  rather,  a  man  has  an  exclu- 
sive right  to  one  special  woman,  though  he  may  of  his  own 
free  will  lend  her  to  other  men/'  provided  they  stand  in  a 
certain  artificial  relation  to  her  (74).  However  (92)  : 

"  Whilst  under  ordinary  circumstances  in  the  Arunta  and 
other  tribes  one  man  is  only  allowed  to  have  marital  relations 
Avith  women  of  a  particular  class,  there  are  customs  which 
allow  at  certain  times  of  a  man  having  such  relations  with 
women  to  whom  at  other  times  he  would  not  on  any  account 
be  allowed  to  have  access.  We  find,  indeed,  that  this  holds 
true  in  the  case  of  all  the  nine  different  tribes  with  the  mar- 
riage customs  of  which  we  are  acquainted,  and  in  which  a 
woman  becomes  the  private  property  of  one  man." 

In  the  southern  Arunta,  after  a  certain  ceremony  has 
been  performed,  the  bride  is  brought  back  to  camp  and 
given  to  her  special  Unawa.  "  That  night  he  lends  her  to 
one  or  two  men  who  are  unawa  to  her,  and  afterward  she 
belongs  to  him  exclusively."  At  this  time  when  a  woman  is 
being,  so  to  speak,  handed  over  to  one  particular  individual, 
special  individuals  with  whom  at  ordinary  times  she  may 
have  no  intercourse,  have  the  right  of  access  to  her.  Such 
customs  our  authors  interpret  plausibly  as  partial  promis- 
cuity pointing  to  a  time  when  still  greater  laxity  prevailed — 
suggesting  rudimentary  organs  in  animals  (9C). 

Among  some  tribes  at  corrobboree  time,  every  day  two  or 
three  women  are  told  off  and  become  the  property  of  all  the 
men  on  the  corrobboree  grounds,  excepting  fathers,  brothers, 
or  sons.  Thus  there  are  three  stages  of  individual  owner- 
ship in  women  :  In  the  first,  whilst  the  man  has  exclusive 
right  to  a  woman,  he  can  and  does  lend  her  to  certain  other 
men  ;  in  the  second  there  is  a  wider  relation  in  regard  to 
particular  men  at  the  time  of  marriage;  and  in  the  third  a 
still  wider  relation  to  all  men  except  the  nearest  relatives,  at 
corrobboree  time.  Onlv  in  the  first  of  these  cases  can  we 


ABORIGINAL    DEPRAVITY  437 

properly  speak  of  wife  "lending";  in  the  other  cases  the 
individuals  have  no  choice  and  cannot  withhold  their  con- 
sent, the  matter  being  of  a  public  or  tribal  nature.  As  re- 
gards the  corrobborees,  it  is  supposed  to  be  the  duty  of  every 
man  at  different  times  to  send  his  wife  to  the  ground,  and 
the  most  striking  feature  in  regard  to  it  is  that  the  first  man 
who  has  access  to  her  is  the  very  one  to  whom,  under  normal 
conditions,  she  is  most  strictly  taboo,  her  Mura.  [All  women 
\vimse  daughters  are  eligible  as  wives  are  mura  to  a  man.] 
Old  and  young  men  alike  must  give  up  their  wives  on  these 
occasions.  "  It  is  a  custom  of  ancient  date  which  is  sanctioned 
by  public  opinion,  and  to  the  performance  of  which  neither 
men  nor  women  concerned  offer  any  opposition  "  (98). 

ABORIGINAL   DEPRAVITY 

These  revelations  of  Spencer  and.Gillen,  taken  in  connec- 
tion with  the  abundant  evidence  I  have  cited  from  the  works 
of  early  explorers  as  to  the  utter  depravity  of  the  aboriginal 
Australian  when  first  seen  by  white  men,  will  make  it  impos- 
sible hereafter  for  anyone  whose  reasoning  powers  exceed  a 
native  Australian's  to  maintain  that  it  was  the  whites  who  cor- 
rupted these  ravages.  It  takes  an  exceptionally  shrewd  white 
man  even  to  unravel  the  customs  of  voluntary  or  obligatory 
wife  sharing  or  lending  which  prevail  in  all  parts  of  Australia, 
and  which  must  have  required  not  only  hundreds  but  thou- 
sands of  years  to  assume  their  present  extraordinarily  com- 
plex aspect  ;  customs  which  form  part  and  parcel  of  the  very 
life  of  Australians  and  which  represent  the  lowest  depths  of 
sexual  depravity,  since  they  are  utterly  incompatible  with 
chastity,  fidelity,  legitimacy,  or  anything  else  we  understand 
by  sexual  morality.  In  some  cases,  no  doubt,  contact  with 
the  low  whites  and  their  liquor  aggravated  these  evils  by  fos- 
tering professional  prostitution  and  making  men  even  more 
ready  than  before  to  treat  their  wives  as  merchandise.  Lum- 
holtz,  who  lived  several  years  among  these  savages,  makes 
this  admission  (345),  but  at  the  same  time  he  is  obliged  to 
join  all  the  other  witnesses  in  declaring  that  apart  from  this 


438  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

' '  there  is  not  much  to  be  said  of  the  morals  of  the  blacks,  for 
I  am  sorry  to  say  they  have  none."  On  a  previous  page  (42) 
I  cited  Sutherland's  summary  of  a  report  of  the  House  of 
Commons  (1844,  350  pages),  which  shows  that  the  Australian 
native,  as  found  by  the  first  white  visitors,  manifested  "  an 
absolute  incapacity  to  form  even  a  rudimentary  notion  of 
chastity."  The  same  writer,  who  was  born  and  brought  up 
in  Australia,  says  (I.,  121)  :  ( '  In  almost  every  case  the  father 
or  husband  will  dispose  of  the  girl's  virtue  for  a  small  price. 
When  white  men  came  they  found  these  habits  prevailing. 
The  overwhelming  testimony  proves  it  absurd  to  say  that 
they  demoralized  the  unsophisticated  savages."  And  again 
(I.,  186),  "  It  is  untrue  that  in  sexual  license  the  savage  has 
ever  anything  to  learn.  In  almost  every  tribe  there  are  pol- 
lutions deeper  than  any  I  have  thought  it  necessary  to  men- 
tion, and  all  that  the  lower  fringe  of  civilized  men  can  do  to 
harm  the  uncivilized  is  to  stoop  to  the  level  of  the  latter,  in- 
stead of  teaching  them  a  better  way." 1 


THE   QUESTION   OF   PROMISCUITY 

As  regards  the  promiscuity  question,  Spencer  and  Gillen's 
observations  go  far  to  confirm  some  of  the  seemingly  fantastic 
speculations  regarding  "  a  thousand  miles  of  wives,"  and  so 
on,  contained  in  the  volume  of  Fison  and  Howitt, 2  and  to 
make  it  probable  that  unregulated  intercourse  was  the  state 
of  primitive  man  at  a  stage  of  evolution  earlier  than  any 
known  to  us  now.  Since  the  appearance  of  Westermarck's 
History  of  Human  Marriage  it  has  become  the  fashion  to  re- 

1  See  also  the  account  he  gives  (I.,  180)  of  the  report  as  to  aboriginal  morals 
made  in  the  early  days  of  Victoria  by  a  commission  of  fourteen  settlers,  mission- 
aries, and  protectors  of  the  aborigines.  The  explorer  Sturt  (I.,  316)  even  found 
that  the  natives  became  indignant  if  the  whites  rejected  their  addresses. 

3  See  also  a  very  important  paper  on  this  subject  by  Howitt  in  the  Journal  of 
the  Anthropological  Institute,  Vol.  XX.,  1890,  demonstrating  that  "in  Aus- 
tralia at  the  present  day  group  marriage  does  exist  in  a  well-marked  form,  which 
is  evidently  only  the  modified  survival  of  a  still  more  complete  social  commun- 
ism "  (104).  Regarding  the  manner  in  which  group  marriage  gradually  passed 
into  individual  proprietorship,  a  suggestive  hint  may  be  found  in  this  sentence 
from  Brough  Smyth  (II.,  316) :  When  women  are  carried  off  from  another  tribe, 
lk  they  are  common  property  till  they  are  gradually  annexed  by  the  best  war- 
riors of  the  tribe." 


THE    QUESTION    OF    PROMISCUITY  439 

gard  the  theory  of  promiscuity  as  disproved.  Alfred  Russell 
Wallace,  in  his  preface  to  this  book,  expresses  his  opinion 
that  "independent  thinkers"  will  agree  with  its  author  on 
most  of  the  points  wherein  he  takes  issue  with  his  famous  pre- 
decessors, including  Spencer,  Morgan,  Lubbock,  and  others. 
Ernst  Grosse,  in  a  volume  which  the  president  of  the  German 
Anthropological  Society  pronounced  "epoch-making" — Die 
For-men  der  Familie— refers  (43)  to  Westermarck's  "very 
thorough  refutation  "  of  this  theory,  which  he  stigmatizes  as 
one  of  the  blunders  of  the  unfledged  science  of  sociology 
which  it  will  be  best  to  forget  as  soon  as  possible  ;  adding 
that  "  Westermarck's  best  weapons  were,  however,  forged  by 
Starcke." 

In  a  question  like  this,  however,  two  independent  observers 
are  worth  more  than  two  hundred  "  independent  thinkers." 
Spencer  and  Gillen  are  eye-witnesses,  and  they  inform  us  -re- 
peatedly (100,  105,  108,  111)  that  Westermarck's  objections 
to  the  theory  of  promiscuity  do  not  stand  the  test  of  facts  and 
that  none  of  his  hypotheses  explains  away  the  customs  which 
point  to  a  former  prevalence  of  promiscuity.  They  have  ab- 
solutely disproved  his  assertion  (539)  that  "  it  is  certainly  not 
among  the  lowest  peoples  that  sexual  relations  most  nearly 
approach  promiscuity."  Cunow,  who,  as  Grosse  admits  (50), 
has  written  the  most  thorough  and  authentic  monograph  on 
the  complicated  family  relationship  of  Australia,  devotes  two 
pages  (122-23)  to  exposing  some  of  Westermarck's  argu- 
ments, which,  as  he  shows,  "  border  on  the  comic."  I  myself 
have  in  this  chapter,  as  well  as  in  those  on  Africans,  Ameri- 
can Indians,  South  Sea  Islanders,  etc.,  revealed  the  comic- 
ality of  the  assertion  that  there  is  in  a  savage  condition  of  life 
"  comparatively  little  reason  for  illegitimate  relations,"  which 
forms  one  of  the  main  props  of  Westermarck's  anti-promis- 
cuity theory  ;  and  I  have  also  reduced  ad  absurdum  his  sys- 
tematic overrating  of  savages  in  the  matter  of  liberty  of 
choice,  esthetic  taste  and  capacity  for  affection  which  re- 
sulted from  his  pet  theory  and  marred  his  whole  book.1 

»  In  my  mind  the  strongest  argument,  against  Westermarck's  views  as  regards 
promiscuity  is  that  all  his  tributary  theories,  so  to  speak,  which  I  have  had 


440  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Darwin  (D.  Jf.,  (fl\.  XX.)  con- 
cluded from  the  facts  known  to  him  that  "  almost  promis- 
cuous intercourse  or  very  loose  intercourse  was  once  extremely 
common  throughout  the  world  : "  and  the  only  thing  that 
seemed  to  deter  him  from  believing  in  absolutely  pro- 
miscuous intercourse  was  the  "  strength  of  the  feeling  of 
jealousy."  Had  he  lived  to  understand  the  true  nature  of 
savage  jealousy  explained  in  this  volume  and  to  read  the 
revelations  of  Spencer  and  Gillen,  that  difficulty  would  have 
vanished.  On  this  point,,  too,  their  remarks  are  of  great  im- 
portance, fully  bearing  out  the  view  set  forth  in  my  chapter- 
on  jealousy.  They  declare  (99)  that  they  did  not  find  sexual 
jealousy  specially  developed  : 

"  For  a  man  to  have  unlawful  intercourse  with  any  woman 
arouses  a  feeling  which  is  due  not  so  much  to  jealousy  as  to 
the  fact  that  the  delinquent  has  infringed  a  tribal  custom. 
If  the  intercourse  has  been  with  a  woman  who  belongs  to  the 
class  from  which  his  wife  comes,  then  he  is  called  atna 
nylkna  (which,  literally  translated,  is  vulva  thief)  ;  if  with 
one  with  whom  it  is  unlawful  for  him  to  have  intercourse, 
then  he  is  called  iturka,  the  most  opprobrious  term  in  the 
Arunta  language.  In  the  one  case  he  has  merely  stolen  prop- 
erty, in  the  other  he  has  offended  against  tribal  law/' 

Jealousy,  they  sum  up,  "  is  indeed  a  factor  which  need  not 
be  taken  into  serious  account  in  regard  to  the  question  of 
sexual  relations  amongst  the  Central  Australian  tribes." 

The  customs  described  by  these  authors  show,  moreover, 
that  these  savages  do  not  allow  jealousy  to  stand  in  the  way 
of  sexual  communism,  a  man  who  refuses  to  share  his  wife 
being  considered  churlish,  in  one  class  of  cases,  while  in  an- 
other no  choice  is  allowed  him,  the  matter  being  arranged  by 

occasion  to  examine  in  this  volume  have  proved  so  utterly  inconsistent  with 
facts.  The  question  of  promiscuity  itself  I  cannot  examine  in  detail  here,  as  it 
h-irdly  comes  within  the  scope  of  this  book.  In  view  of  the  confusion  Wester- 
marck  has  already  created  in  recent  scientific  literature  by  his  specious  plead- 
ing, I  need  not  apologize  for  the  frequency  of  my  polemics  against  him.  His 
imposing  erudition  and  his  cleverness  in  juggling  with  facts  by  ignoring  those 
that  do  not  please  him  (as.  e.  #.,  in  case  of  r.he  morality  of  the  Kaffirs  and  Aus- 
tralians, and  the  u  liberty  of  choice"  of  their  women)  make  him  a  serious  obsta- 
cle to  the  investigation  of  the  truth  regarding  man's  sexual  history,  wherefore 
it  is  necessary  to  expose  his  errors  promptly  and  thoroughly. 


WHY    DO    AUSTRALIANS    MARRY?  441 

the  tribe.  This  point  has  not  heretofore  been  sufficiently 
emphasized.  It  knocks  away  one  of  the  strongest  props  of 
the  anti-promiscuity  theory,  and  it  is  supported  by  the  re- 
marks of  Hewitt,1  who,  after  explaining  how,  among  the 
Dieri,  couples  are  chosen  by  headmen  without  consulting  their 
wishes, — new  allotments  being  made  at  each  circumcision  cere- 
mony— and  how  the  dance  is  followed  by  a  general  license, 
goes  on  to  relate  that  all  these  matters  are  carefully  arranged 
.so  as  to  prevent  jealousy.  Sometimes  this  passion  breaks 
out  nevertheless,  leading  to  bloody  quarrels  ;  but  the  main 
point  is  that  systematic  efforts  are  made  to  suppress  jealousy  : 
"  No  jealous  feeling  is  allowed  to  be  shown  during  this  time 
under  penalty  of  strangling."  Whence  we  may  fairly  infer 
that  under  more  primitive  conditions  the  individual  was  al- 
lowed still  less  right  to  assert  jealous  claims  of  individual 
possession. 

Australian  jealousy  presents  some  other  interesting  aspects, 
but  we  shall  be  better  able  to  appreciate  them  if  we  first  con- 
sider why  a  native  ever  puts  himself  into  a  position  where 
jealous  watchfulness  of  private  property  is  called  for. 


WHY   DO   AUSTRALIANS   MARRY  ? 

Since  chastity  among  the  young  of  both  sexes  is  not  held  of 
any  account,  and  since  the  young  girls,  who  are  married  to  men 
four  or  five  times  their  age,  are  always  ready  for  an  intrigue  with 
a  young  bachelor,  why  does  an  Australian  ever  marry  ?  He 
does  not  marry  for  love,  for,  as  this  whole  chapter  proves,  he 
is  incapable  of  such  a  sentiment.  His  appetites  need  not 
urge  him  to  marry,  since  there  are  so  many  ways  of  appeasing 
them  outside  of  matrimony.  He  does  not  marry  to  enjoy  a 
monopoly  of  a  woman's  favors,  since  he  is  ready  to  share  them 
with  others.  Why  then  does  he  marry  ?  One  reason  may  be 
that,  as  the  men  get  older  (they  seldom  marry  before  they  are 
twenty-five  or  even  thirty),  they  have  less  relish  for  the  dan- 
gers connected  with  woman-stealing  and  intrigues.  A  sec- 

1  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.,  1890,  53. 


442  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

oiid  reason  is  indicated  in  Hewitt's  explanation  (Jour.  A  nthr. 
Inst.,  XX.,  58),  that  it  is  an  advantage  to  an  Australian  to 
have  as  many  wives  as  possible,  as  they  work  and  hunt  for  him, 
and  "  he  also  obtains  great  influence  in  the  tribe  by  lending 
them  his  Piraurus  occasionally,  and  receiving  presents  from 
the  young  men." 

The  main  reason,  however,  why  an  Australian  marries  is  in 
order  that  he  may  have  a  drudge.  I  have  previously  cited 
Eyre's  statement  that  the  natives  "  value  a  wife  principally  as 
a  slave  ;  in  fact,  when  asked  why  they  are  anxious  to  obtain 
wives,  their  usual  reply  is,  that  they  may  get  wood,  water, 
and  food  for  them,  and  carry  whatever  property  they  possess." 
H.  Kempe  (loc.  cit.,  55)  says  that  "  if  there  are  plenty  of 
girls  they  are  married  as  early  as  possible  (at  the  age  of  eight 
to  ten),  as  far  as  possible  to  one  and  the  same  man,  for  as  it  is 
the  duty  of  the  women  to  provide  food,  a  man  who  has  sev- 
eral wives  can  enjoy  his  leisure  the  more  thoroughly."  And 
Lindsay  Cranford  testifies  (Jour.  Anthrop.  Inst..,  XXIV., 
181)  regarding  the  Victoria  River  natives  that,  "  after  about 
thirty  years  of  age  a  man  is  allowed  to  have  as  many  women 
as  he  likes,  and  the  older  he  gets  the  younger  the  girls  are 
that  he  gets,  probably  to  work  and  get  food  for  him,  for  in 
their  wild  state  the  man  is  too  proud  to  do  anything  except 
carry  a  woomera  and  spear." 

Under  these  circumstances  it  is  needless  to  say  that  there  is 
not  a  trace  of  romance  connected  with  an  Australian  mar- 
riage. After  a  man  has  secured  his  girl,  she  quietly  submits 
and  goes  with  him  as  his  wife  and  drudge,  to  build  his  camp, 
gather  firewood,  fetch  water,  make  nets,  clear  away  grass,  dig 
roots,  fish  for  mussels,  be  his  baggage  mule  on  journeys,  etc. 
(Brough  Smyth,  84)  ;  and  Eyre  (II.,  319)  thus  completes  the 
picture.  There  is,  he  says,  no  marriage  ceremony  :  "  In 
those  cases  where  I  have  witnessed  the  giving  away  of  a  wife, 
the  woman  was  simply  ordered  by  the  nearest  male  relative  in 
whose  disposal  she  was,  to  take  up  her  '  rocko/  the  bag  in 
which  a  female  carries  the  effects  of  her  husband,  and  go  to 
the  man's  camp  to  whom  she  had  been  given." 


CURIOSITIES   OF   JEALOUSY  443 


CUKIOSITIES   OF   JEALOUSY 

Thus  the  woman  becomes  the  man's  slave — his  property  in 
every  sense  of  the  word.  No  matter  how  he  obtained  her — 
by  capture,  elopement,  or  exchange  for  another  woman — she 
is  his  own,  as  much  as  his  spear  or  his  boomerang.  "  The 
husband  is  the  absolute  owner  of  the  wife,"  saysCurr(L, 
109).  To  cite  Eyre  once  more  (318)  :  "  Wives  are  considered 
the  absolute  property  of  the  husband,  and  can  be  given  away, 
or  exchanged,  or  lent,  according  to  his  caprice.  A  husband 
is  denominated  in  the  Adelaide  dialect,  Yongarra,  Martanya 
(the  owner  or  proprietor  of  a  wife)/3 

A  whole  chapter  in  sociology  is  sometimes  summed  up  in  a 
word,  as  we  see  in  this  case.  Another  instance  is  the  word 
gramma,  concerning  which  we  read  in  Lumholtz  (126) : 

"  The  robbery  of  women,  who  also  among  these  savages  are 
regarded  as  a  man's  most  valuable  property,  is  both  the  gross- 
est and  the  most  common  theft ;  for  it  is  the  usual  way  of 
getting  a  wife.  Hence  woman  is  the  chief  cause  of  disputes. 
Inchastity,  which  is  called  gramma,  i.e.,  to  steal,  also  falls 
under  the  head  of  theft." 

Here  we  have  a  simple  and  concise  explanation  of  Austra- 
lian jealousy.  The  native  knows  jealousy  in  its  crudest  form 
— that  of  mere  animal  rage  at  being  prevented  by  a  rival 
from  taking  immediate  possession  of  the  object  of  his  desire. 
He  knows  also  the  jealousy  of  property — i.e.,  revenge  for  in- 
fringement on  it.  Of  this  it  is  needless  to  give  examples. 
Buthe  knows  not  true  jealousy — i.e.,  anxious  concern  for  his 
wife's  chastity  and  fidelity,  since  he  is  always  ready  to  barter 
these  things  for  a  trifle.  Proofs  of  this  have  already  been 
adduced  in  abundance.  Here  is  another  authoritative  state- 
ment by  the  missionary  Schurmann,  who  writes  (223)  :  "  The 
loose  practices  of  the  aborigines,  with  regard  to  the  sanctity 
of  matrimony,  form  the  worst  trait  in.  their  character  ;  al- 
though the  men  are  capable  of  fierce  jealousy  if  their  wives 
transgress  unknown  to  them,  yet  they  frequently  send  them 


444  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

out  to  other  parties,  or  exchange  with  a  friend  for  a  night  ; 
and,  as  for  near  relatives,  such  as  brothers,  it  may  almost  be 
said  that  they  have  their  wives  in  common." 

An  incident  related  by  W.  H.  Leigh  (152)  shows  in  a  start- 
ling way  that  among  the  Australians  jealousy  means  nothing 
more  than  a  desire  for  revenge  because  of  infringement  on 
property  rights  : 

"  A  chief  discovered  that  one  of  his  wives  had  been  sinning, 
and  called  a  council,  at  which  it  was  decided  that  the  crim- 
inal should  be  sacrificed,  or  the  adulterous  chief  give  a  victim 
to  appease  the  wrathful  husband.  This  was  agreed  to  nnd 
he  gave  one  of  Ms  ivives,  who  was  immediately  escorted  to 
the'side  of  the  river  .  .  .  and  there  the  ceremony  was 
preluded  by  a  war-song,  and  the  enraged  chief  rushed  upon 
the  innocent  and  unfortunate  victim — bent  down  her  head 
upon  her  chest,  whilst  another  thrust  the  pointed  bone  of  a 
kangaroo  under  her  left  rib,  and  drove  it  upwards  into  her 
heart.  The  shrieks  of  the  poor  wretch  brought  down  to  the 
spot  many  colonists,  who  arrived  in  time  only  to  see  the  con- 
clusion of  the  horrid  spectacle.  After  they  had  buried  the 
bone  in  her  body  they  took  their  glass-pointed  spears  and 
tore  her  entrails  out,  and  finally  fractured  her  skull  with  their 
waddies.  This  barbarous  method  of  wreaking  vengeance  is 
common  among  them."1 

The  men  being  indifferent  to  female  chastity,  it  would  be 
vain  to  expect  true  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  women.  The 
men  are  entirely  unrestrained  in  their  appetites  unless  they 
interfere  with  other  men's  property  rights,  and  in  a  com- 
munity where  polygamy  prevails  the  jealousy  which  is  based 
in  a  monopoly  of  affection  has  little  chance  to  nourish. 
Tuplin  says  (101)  that  "a  wife  amongst  the  heathen 
aborigines  has  no  objection  to  her  husband  taking  another 
spouse,  provided  she  is  younger  than  herself,  but  if  he 
brings  home  one  older  than  herself  there  is  apt  to  be 

1  Would  our  friend  Stephens  he  fearless  enough  to  claim  that  this  custom  also 
was  taught  the  natives  by  the  degraded  whites  ?  Apart  from  the  diabolical 
cruelty  to  a  woman  of  which  no  white  man  except  a  maniac  would  ever  be  indi- 
vidually guilty — whereas  this  is  a  tribal  custom— note  the  unutterable  masculine 
selfishness  of  this  "jealousy,"  which,  while  indifferent  to  chastity  and  fidelity, 
per  se,  punishes  by  proxy,  leaving  the  real  culprit  untouched  and  f-appy  at 
having  not  only  had  his  intrigue  but  a  chance  to  get  rid  of  an  undesired  w.fe  ! 


CURIOSITIES   OF   JEALOUSY  445 

trouble,  as  the  senior  wife  is  "  mistress  of  the  camp,"  and 
in  such  a  case  the  first  wife  is  apt  to  run  away.  Vanity  and 
envy,  or  the  desire  to  be  the  favorite,  thus  appear  to  be  the 
principal  ingredients  in  an  Australian  woman's  jealousy. 
Meyer  (191)  says  of  the  Encounter  Bay  tribe  :  "  If  a  man 
has  several  girls  at  his  disposal,  he  speedily  obtains  several 
wives,  who,  however,  very  seldom  agree  well  with  each  other, 
but  are  continually  quarreling,  each  endeavoring  to  be  the 
favorite."  This,  it  will  be  observed,  is  the  jealousy  two  pet 
dogs  will  feel  of  each  other,  and  is  utterly  different  from  mod- 
ern conjugal  or  lover's  jealousy,  which  is  chiefly  based  on  an 
ardent  regard  for  chastity  and  unswerving  fidelity.  In  this 
phase  jealousy  is  a  noble  and  useful  passion,  helping  to  main- 
tain the  purity  of  the  family  ;  whereas,  in  the  phase  that 
prevails  among  savages  it  is  utterly  selfish  and  brutal.  Pal- 
mer says l  that  "  a  new  woman  would  always  be  beaten  by 
the  other  wife,  and  a  good  deal  would  depend  on  the  fighting 
powers  of  the  former  whether  she  kept  her  position  or  not." 
"  Among  the  Kalkadoon,"  writes  Both  (141),  "  where  a  man 
may  have  three,  four,  or  even  five  gins,  the  discarded  ones 
will  often,  through  jealousy,  fight  with  her  whom  they  con- 
sider more  favored.  On  such  occasions  they  may  often 
resort  to  stone-throwing,  or  even  use  fire-sticks  and  stone- 
knives  with  which  to  mutilate  the  genitals."  Lumholtz  says 
(213)  the  black  women  "often  have  bitter  quarrels  about 
men  whom  they  love  and  are  anxious  to  marry.  If  the 
husband  is  unfaithful,  the  wife  frequently  becomes  greatly 
enraged." 

George  Grey  (II.,  312-14)  gives  an  amusing  sketch  of  an 
aboriginal  scene  of  conjugal  bliss.  Weening,  an  old  man, 
has  four  wives,  the  last  of  whom,  just  added  to  the  harem, 
gets  all  his  attention.  This  excites  the  anger  of  one  of  the 
older  ones,  who  reproaches  the  husband  with  having  stolen 
her,  an  unwilling  bride,  from  another  and  better  man.  "  May 
the  sorcerer,"  she  adds,  "bite  and  tear  her  whom  you  have 
now  taken  to  your  bed.  Here  am  I,  rebuking  young  men  who 

*Jour.  Anthr.  l»st.,  XII,  282. 


446  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

dare  to  look  at  me,  while  she,  your  favorite,  replete  with  arts 
and  wiles,  dishonors  you."  This  last  insinuation  is  too  much 
for  the  young  favorite,  who  retorts  by  calling  her  a  liar  and 
declaring  that  she  has  often  seen  her  exchanging  nods  and 
winks  with  her  paramour.  The  rival's  answer  is  a  blow 
with  her  stick.  A  general  engagement  follows,  which  the 
old  man  finally  ends  by  beating  several  of  the  wives  severely 
about  the  head  with  a  hammer.1 


PUGNACIOUS   FEMALES 

Jealousy  is  capable  of  converting  even  civilized  women  into 
fiends ;  all  the  more  these  bush  women,  who  have  few  oppor- 
tunities for  cultivating  the  gentler  feminine  qualities.  In- 
deed, so  masculine  are  these  women  that  were  it  not  for  wom- 
an's natural  inferiority  in  strength  their  tyrants  might  find 
it  hard  to  subdue  them.  Buhner  says 2  that  "as  a  rule  both 
husband  and  wife  had  fearful  tempers  ;  there  was  no  bearing 
and  forbearing.  When  they  quarrelled  it  was  a  matter  of 
the  strongest  conquering,  for  neither  would  give  in."  De- 
scribing a  native  fight  over  some  trifling  cause  Taplin  says 
(71)  :  "  Women  were  dancing  about  naked,  casting  dust  in 
the  air,  hurling  obscene  language  at  their  enemies,  and  en- 
couraging their  friends.  It  was  a  perfect  tempest  of  rage." 

1  Grey  might  have  made  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  comparative  psychology 
of  passion  by  noting  down  the  chant  of  the  rivals  in  their  own  words.  Instead 
of  that,  for  literary  effect,  he  cast  them  into  European  metre  and  rhyme,  with 
various  expressions,  like  " bless"  and  "caress,"  which  of  course  are  utterly  be- 
yond an  Australian's  mental  horizon.  This  absurd  procedure,  which  has  made 
so  many  documents  of  travellers  valueless  for  scientific  purposes,  is  like  filling 
an  ethnological  museum  with  pictures  of  Australians,  Africans,  etc.,  all  clothed 
in  swallow-tail  coats  and  silk  hats.  Cf.  Grosse  (B.  A.,  236),  and  Semon  (224). 
Real  Australian  "  poems'1  are  like  the  following : 

"  The  peas  the  white  man  eats— 

I  wish  I  had  some, 

I  wish  I  had  some." 
Or  this: 

"  The  kangaroo  ran  very  fast 

But  I  ran  faster  ; 

The  kangaroo  was  fat ; 

I  ate  him." 

8  Roy.  Oeogr.  Soc.  of  Australasia,  Vol.  V.,  29. 


PUGNACIOUS   FEMALES  447 

Roth  says  of  the  Queensland  natives  that  the  women  fight 
like  men,  with  thick,  heavy  fighting  poles,  four  feet  long. 

"  One  of  the  combatants,  with  her  hands  between  her 
knees,  supposing  that  only  one  stick  is  available,  ducks  her 
head  slightly — almost  in  the  position  of  a  school-boy  playing 
leap-frog,  and  waits  for  her  adversary's  blow,  which  she  re- 
ceives on  the  top  of  her  head.  The  attitudes  are  now  reversed, 
and  the  one  just  attacked  is  now  the  attacking  party.  Blow 
for  blow  is  thus  alternated  until  one  of  them  gives  in,  which 
is  generally  the  case  after  three  or  four  hits.  Great  animal 
pluck  is  sometimes  displayed.  .  .  .  Should  a  woman 
ever  put  up  her  hand  or  a  stick,  etc.,  to  ward  a  blow,  she 
would  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  coward  "  (141). 

"  At  Genorminston,  the  women  coming  up  to  join  a  fray 
give  a  sort  of  war-whoop  ;  they  will  jump  up  in  the  air,  and 
as  their  feet,  a  little  apart,  touch  the  ground,  they  knock  up 
the  dust  and  sand  with  the  fighting-pole,  etc.,  held  between 
their  legs,  very  like  one's  early  reminiscences  in  the  picture- 
books  of  a  witch  riding  a  broom-stick." 

"  The  ferocity  of  the  women  when  excited  exceeds  that  of 
the  men/'  Grey  informs  us  (II.,  314) ;  "  they  deal  dreadful 
blows  at  one  another,"  etc. 

For  some  unexplained  reason — possibly  a  vague  sense  of 
fair  play  which  in  time  may  lead  to  the  beginnings  of  'gal- 
lantry—  there  is  one  occasion,  an  initiation  ceremonial,  at 
which  women  are  allowed  to  have  their  innings  while  the 
men  are  dancing.  On  this  occasion,  says  Roth  (176), 

"  each  woman  can  exercise  her  right  of  punishing  any  man 
who  may  have  ill-treated,  abused,  or  hammered  her,  and  for 
whom  she  may  have  waited  months  or  perhaps  years  to  chas- 
tise ;  for,  as  each  pair  appear  around  the  corner  at  the  en- 
trance exposed  to  her  view,  the  woman  and  any  of  her  female 
friends  may  take  a  fighting-pole  and  belabor  the  particular 
culprit  to  their  heart's  content,  the  delinquent  not  being  al- 
lowed to  retaliate  in  any  way  whatsoever — the  only  occasion 
in  the  whole  of  her  life  when  the  woman  can  take  the  law 
into  her  own  hands  without  fear  or  favor." 


448  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 


WIFE   STEALING 

This  last  assertion  is  not  strictly  accurate.  There  are 
other  occasions  when  women  take  the  law  into  their  hands, 
especially  when  men  try  to  steal  them,  an  every-day  occur- 
rence, at  least  in  former  times.  Thus  W.  H.  Leigh  writes 
of  the  South  Australians  (152)  : 

"  Their  manner  of  courtship  is  one  which  would  not  he 
popular  among  English  ladies.  If  a  chief,  or  any  other  in- 
dividual, be  smitten  by  a  female  of  a  different  tribe,  he  en- 
deavors to  waylay  her;  and  if  she  be  surprised  in  any  quiet 
place,  the  ambushed  lover  rushes  upon  her,  beats  her  about 
the  head  with  his  waddy  till  she  becomes  senseless,  when  she 
is  dragged  in  triumph  to  his  hut.  It  sometimes  happens, 
however,  that  she  has  a  thick  skull,  and  resents  his  blows, 
when  a  battle  ensues,  and  not  unfrequently  ends  in  the  dis- 
comfiture of  the  Adonis." 

Similarly  G.  B.  Wilkinson  describes  how  the  young  men 
go,  usually  in  groups  of  two  or  three,  to  capture  brides  of 
hostile  tribes.  They  lurk  about  in  concealment  till  they  see 
that  the  women  are  alone,  when  they  pounce  upon  them  and, 
either  by  persuasion  or  blows,  take  away  those  they  want  ; 
whereupon  they  try  to  regain  their  own  tribe  before  pursuit 
can  be  attempted.  "  This  stealing  of  wives  is  one  cause  of 
the  frequent  wars  that  take  place  amongst  the  natives." 

Barrington's  History  of  New  South  Wales  is  adorned  with 
the  picture  of  a  big  naked  man  having  beside  him,  on  her 
back,  a  beautifully  formed  naked  girl  whom  he  is  dragging 
away  by  one  arm.  The  monster,  we  read  in  the  text,  has 
come  upon  her  unawares,  clubbed  her  on  the  head  and  oth-er 
parts  of  the  body,  "  then  snatching  up  one  of  her  arms,  he 
drags  her,  streaming  with  blood  from  her  wounds,  through 
the  woods,  over  stones,  rocks,  hills,  and  logs,  with  all  the  vio- 
lence and  determination  of  a  savage,"  etc.  Curr  (I.,  237) 
objects  to  this  picture  as  a  gross  exaggeration.  He  also  de- 
clares (I.,  108)  that  it  is  only  on  rare  occasions  that  a  wife  is 
captured  from  another  tribe  and  carried  off.  and  that  at  pres- 
ent woman-stealing  is  not  encouraged,  as  it  is  apt  to  involve 


WIFE   STEALING  449 

a  whole  tribe  in  war  for  one  man's  sake.  From  older  writers, 
however,  one  gets  the  impression  that  wife-stealing  was  a 
common  custom.  Howitt  (351)  remarks  concerning  the 
"wild  white  man"  William  Buckley,  who  liv^d  many 
years  among  the  natives,  and  whose  adventures  were  written 
up  by  John  Morgan,  that  at  first  sight  his  statements  "  seem 
to  record  merely  a  series  of  duels  and  battles  about  women 
who  were  stolen,  speared,  and  slaughtered  ; "  and  Brough 
Smyth  (77)  quotes  John  Bulmer,  who  says  that  among  the 
Gippsland  natives 

"  sometimes  a  man  who  has  no  sister  [to  swap]  will,  in  des- 
peration, steal  a  wife  ;  but  this  is  invariably  a  cause  of  blood- 
shed. Should  a  woman  object  to  go  with  her  husband, 
violence  would  be  used.  I  have  seen  a  man  drag  away  a 
woman  by  the  hair  of  her  head.  Often  a  club  is  used  until 
the  poor  creature  is  frightened  into  submission." 

In  South  Australia  there  is  a  special  expression  for  bride- 
stealing — Milla  mangkondi,  or  force-marriage.  (Bonwick,  65.) 
Mitchell  (I.,  307)  also  observed  that  the  possession  of  the 
women  "  seems  to  be  associated  with  all  their  ideas  of  fighting." 
The  same  impression  is  conveyed  by  the  writings  of  Salvado, 
Wilkes,  and  others — Sturt,  e.g.,  who  wrote  (II.,  283)  that  the 
abduction  of  a  married  or  unmarried  woman  was  a  frequent 
cause  of  quarrel.  Mitchell  (I.,  330)  relates  that  when  some 
whites  told  a  native  that  they  had  killed  a  native  of  another 
tribe,  his  first  thought  and  only  remark  was,  "  Stupid  white 
fellows  !  Why  did  you  not  bring  away  the  gins  (women)  ?  " 
It  is  unfortunate  for  a  woman  to  possess  the  kind  of  "  beauty" 
Australians  admire  for,  as  Grey  says  (II.,  231), 

"  The  early  life  of  a  young  woman  at  all  celebrated  for  beauty 
is  generally  one  continued  series  of  captivity  to  different 
masters,  of  ghastly  wounds,  of  wanderings  in  strange  families, 
of  rapid  flights,  of  bad  treatment  from  other  females  amongst 
whom  she  is  brought  a  stranger  by  her  captor  ;  and  rarely  do 
you  see  a  form  of  unusual  grace  and  elegance  but  it  is  marked 
and  scarred  by  the  furrows  of  old  wounds ;  and  many  a  female 
thus  wanders  several  hundred  miles  from  the  home  of  her 
infancy." 


450  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

It  is  not  only  from  other  and  hostile  tribes  that  these  men 
forcibly  appropriate  girls  or  married  women.  Among  the 
Hunter  Pviver  tribes  (Curr,  III.,  353),  "  men  renowned  as  war- 
riors frequently  attacked  their  inferiors  in  strength  and  took 
their  wives  from  them."  The  Queensland  natives,  we  are 
told  by/Narcisse  Peltier,  who  lived  among  them  seventeen 
years,  "  ilot  unfrequently  fight  with  spears  for  the  possession 
of  a  woman  "  (Spencer,  P.  S.t  I.,  G01).  Lumholtz  says  (184) 
that  "the  majority  of  the  young  men  wait  a' long  time  before 
they  get  wives,  partly  for  the  reason  that  they  have  not  the 
courage  to  fight  the  requisite  duel  for  one  with  an  older  man." 
On  another  page  (212)  he  relates  : 

"  Near  Herbert  Vale  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  able 
to  witness  a  marriage  among  the  blacks.  A  camp  of  na- 
tives was  just  at  the  point  of  breaking  up,  when  an  old 
man  suddenly  approached  a  woman,  seized  her  by  the  wrist 
of  her  left  hand  and  shouted  Yongul  ngipa! — that  is,  This 
one  belongs  to  me  (literally  ( one  I  ').  She  resisted  with  feet 
and  hands,  and  cried,  but  he  dragged  her  off,  though  she 
made  resistance  during  the  whole  time  and  cried  at  the  top 
of  her  voice.  For  a  mile  away  we  could  hear  her  shrieks. 
.  .  .  But  the  women  always  make  resistance,  for  they  do 
not  like  to  leave  their  tribe,  and  in  many  instances  they  have 
the  best  of  reasons  for  kicking  their  lovers.  If  a  man  thinks 
he  is  strong  enough',  he  will  take  hold  of  any  woman's  hand 
and  utter  his  yongul  ngipa.  If  a  woman  is  good-looking,  all 
the  men  want  her,  and  the  one  who  is  most  influential,  or 
who  is  the  strongest,  is  accordingly  generally  the  victor." 


SWAPPING    GIRLS 

It  is  obvious  that  when  women  are  forcibly  appropriated  at 
home  or  stolen  from  other  tribes,  their  inclination  or  choice 
is  not  consulted.  A  man  wants  a  woman  and  she  is  seized, 
nolens  volens,  whether  married  or  single.  If  she  gets  a  man 
she  likes,  it  is  a  mere  accident,  not  likely  to  occur  often.  The 
same,  is  true  of  another  form  of  Australian  "  courtship " 
which  may  be  called  swapping  girls,  and  which  is  far  the 
most  common  way  of  getting  a  wife.  Curr,  after  forty  years' 
experience  with  native  affairs,  wrote  (I.,  107)  that  "the  Aus- 


SWAPPING   GIRLS  451 

tralian  male  almost  invariably  obtains  his  wife  or  wives, 
either  as  the  survivor  of  a  married  brother,  or  in  exchange 
for  his  sisters  or  daughters."  The  Kev.  H.  E.  A.  Meyer  says 
(10)  that  the  marriage  ceremony  "may  with  great  propriety 
be  considered  an  exchange,  for  no  man  can  obtain  a  wife  un- 
less he  can  promise  to  give  his  sister  or  other  relative  in  ex- 
change. .  .  .  Should  the  father  be  living  he  may  give 
his  daughter  away,  but  generally  she  is  the  gift  of  the  brother 
.  .  .  the  girls  have  no  choice  in  the  matter,  and  fre- 
quently the  parties  have  never  seen  each  other  before.  .  .  . 
If  a  man  has  several  girls  at  his  disposal,  he  speedily  obtains 
several  wives."  Eyre  (II.,  318)  declares  that  "  the  females, 
especially  the  young  ones,  are  kept  principally  among  the 
old  men,  who  barter  away  their  daughters,  sisters,  or  nieces, 
in  exchange  for  wives  for  themselves  or  their  sons."  Grey 
(11.,  230)  says  the  same  thing  in  different  words  :  "  The  old 
men  manage  to  keep  the  females  a  good  deal  amongst  them- 
selves, giving  their  daughters  to  one  another,  and  the  more 
female  children  they  have,  the  greater  chance  have  they  of 
getting  another  wife,  by  this  sort  of  exchange."  Brough 
Siny th  thus  sums  up  (II. ,  84)  the  information  on  this  subject 
he  obtained  from  divers  sources  ;  A  yam-stick  is  given  to  a 
girl  when  she  reaches  the  age  of  marriage  ;  with  this  she 
drives  away  any  young  man  she  does  not  fancy,  for  a  mere 
"  no  "  would  not  keep  him  at  bay.  "  The  women  never  ini- 
tiate matches  ; "  these  are  generally  arranged  between  two 
young  men  who  have  sisters  to  exchange.  "The  young 
woman's  opinion  is  not  asked."  When  the  young  man  is 
ready  to  "  propose  "  to  the  girl  he  has  bartered  his  sister  for, 
he  walks  up  to  her  equipped  as  for  war — ready  to  parry  her 
"  love- taps  "  if  she  feels  inclined  that  way.  "  After  a  little 
fencing  between  the  pair  the  woman,  if  she  has  no  serious  ob- 
jections to  the  man,  quietly  submits."  If  she  has  "  serious 
objections,"  what  happens  ?  The  same  writer  tells  us  graph- 
ically (76)  : 

"  By  what  mode  soever  a  man  procures  a  bride,  it  is  very 
seldom  an  occasion  of  rejoicing  by  the  female.  The  males 
engross  the  privilege  of  disposing  of  their  female  relatives, 


452  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

and  it  often  happens  that  an  old  man  of  sixty  or  seventy  will 
add  to  his  domestic  circle  a  young  girl  of  ten  or  twelve  years 
of  age.  ...  A  man  having  a  daughter  of  thirteen  or 
fourteen  years  of  age  arranges  with  some  elderly  person  for 
the  disposal  of  her,  and  when  all  are  agreed,  she  is  brought 
out  of  the  miam-miam,  and  told  that  her  husband  wants  her. 
Perhaps  she  has  never  seen  him,  or  seen  him  but  to  loathe 
him.  The  father  carries  a  spear  and  waddy,  or  a  tomahawk, 
and  anticipating  resistance,  is  thus  prepared  for  it.  The  poor 
girl,  sobbing  and  sighing,  and  uttering  words  of  complaint, 
claims  pity  from  those  who  will  show  none.  If  she  resists 
the  mandates  of  her  father,  he  strikes  her  with  his  spear  ; 
if  she  rebels  and  screams,  the  blows  are  repeated ;  and  if  she 
attempts  to  run  away,  a  stroke  on  the  head  from  the  waddy 
or  tomahawk  quiets  her.  .  .  .  Seizing  the  bride  by  the 
hair  the  stern  father  drags  her  to  the  home  prepared  for  her 
by  her  new  owner.  ...  If  she  attempts  to  abscond,  the 
bridegroom  does  not  hesitate  to  strike  her  savagely  on  the 
head  with  his  waddy  ;  and  the  bridal  screams  and  yells  make 
the  night  hideous.  ...  If  she  is  still  determined  to 
escape  and  makes  the  attempt,  the  father  will  at  last  spear 
her  in  the  leg  or  foot,  to  prevent  her  from  running." 

No  more  than  girls  are  widows  allowed  the  liberty  of 
choice.  Sometimes  they  are  disposed  of  by  being  exchanged 
for  young  women  of  another  tribe  and  have  to  marry  the 
men  chosen  for  them  (95).  "  When  wives  are  from  thirty- 
five  to  forty  years  of  age,  they  are  frequently  cast  off  by  their 
husbands,  or  are  given  to  the  younger  men  in  exchange  for 
their  sisters  or  near  relatives,  if  such  are  at  their  disposal  " 
(Eyre,  II.,  322).  "In  the  Murray  tribes  "a  widow  could 
riot  marry  any  one  she  chose.  She  was  the  property  of  her 
husband's  family,  hence  she  must  marry  her  husband's 
brother  or  near  relative  ;  and  even  if  he  had  a  wife  she 
must  become  No.  2  or  3." 


THE    PHILOSOPHY   OF     ELOPEMENTS 

The  evidence,  in  short,  is  unanimously  to  the  effect  that 
the  Australian  girl  has  absolutely  no  liberty  of  choice.  Yet 
the  astonishing  Westermarck,  ignoring,  more  suo,  the  over- 
whelming number  of  facts  against  him,  endeavors  in  two 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF    ELOPEMENTS          453 

places  (217,  223)  to  convey  the  impression  to  his  readers  that 
she  does  largely  enjoy  the  freedom  of  choice,  placing  his  sole 
reliance  in  two  assertions  by  Howitt  and  Mathew.1  Howitt 
says  that  among  the  Kurnai,  women  are  allowed  free  choice, 
and  Mathew  "  asserts  that,  with  varying  details,  marriage 
by  mutual  consent  will  be  found  among  other  tribes,  also, 
though  it  is  not  completed  except  by  means  of  a  runaway 
match/'  Now  Howitt's  assertion  is  contradicted  by  Curr, 
who,  in  addition  to  his  own  forty  years  of  experience  among 
the  natives  had  the  systematized  notes  of  a  large  number  of 
correspondents  to  base  his  conclusions  on.  He  says  (I.,  108) 
that  "in  no  instance,  unless  Mr.  Hewitt's  account  of  the 
Kurnai  be  correct,  which  I  doubt,  has  the  female  any  voice 
in  the  selection  of  a  husband."  He  might  have  added  that 
Hewitt's  remark  is  contradicted  in  his  own  book,  where  we 
are  told  that  among  the  Kurnai  elopement  is  the  rule. 
Strange  to  say,  it  seems  to  have  occurred  neither  to  Howitt, 
nor  to  Westermarck,  nor  to  Mathew  that  elopement  proves 
the  absence  of  choice,  for  if  there  were  liberty  of  choice  the 
couple  would  not  be  obliged  to  run  away.  Nor  is  this  all.  The 
facts  prove  that  marriage  by  actual  elopement 2  is  of  rare  oc- 
currence ;  that  "  marriage  "  based  on  such  elopement  is  near- 
ly always  adulterous  (with  another  man's  wife)  and  of  brief 
duration — a  mere  intrigue,  in  fact ;  that  the  guilty  couple 
are  severely  punished,  if  not  killed  outright ;  and  that  every- 
thing that  is  possible  is  done  to  prevent  or  frustrate  elope- 

1  The  reason  why  Westermarck  is  so  eager  to  prove  liberty  of  choice  on  the 
part  of  Australian  women  is  because  he  has  set  himself  the  hopeless  task  of 
proving  that  the  lower  we  go  the  more  liberty  woman  has,  and  that  "  under  more 
primitive  conditions  she  was  even  more  free  in  that  respect  than  she  is  now 
amongst  most  of  the  lower  races."  "As  man  in  the  earliest  times,"  he  asserts 
('222),  "  had  no  reason  ...  to  retain  his  full-grown  daughter,  she  might 
go  away  and  marry  at  her  pleasure."  Quite  the  contrary  ;  an  Australian,  than 
whom  we  know  no  more  "  primitive"  man,  had  every  reason  for  not  allowing 
her  to  go  away  and  marry  whom  she  pleased.  He  looked  on  his  daughter,  as  we 
have  seen,  chiefly  as  a  desirable  piece  of  property  to  exchange  for  some  other 
man's  daughter  or  sister. 

a  As  distinguished  from  the  more  common  sham  elopement,  at  which  the  par- 
ents are  consulted  as  usual.  In  the  Kunandaburi  tribe,  for  instance,  as  Howitt 
himself  tells  us  (Jour.  Anthr.  Inxt.,  XX.,  60-61)  the  suitor  asks  permission  of 
the  girl's  parents  to  take  her  away.  "She  resists  all  she  can,  biting  and 
screaming,  while  the  other  women  look  on  laughing."  The  whole  thing  is  ob- 
viously a  custom  ordered  by  the  parents,  and  tells  us  nothing  regarding  the 
presence  or  absence  of  choice.  See  the  remarks  on  sham  capture  in  my  chapter 
on  Coyness  (125). 


454  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

ments  based  on  individual  preference  or  liking.  On  the  first 
of  these  points  Curr  gives  us  the  most  comprehensive  and 
reliable  information  (I.,  108)  : 

"Within  the  tribe,  lovers  occasionally  abscond  to  some 
corner  of  the  tribal  territory,  but  they  are  soon  overtaken, 
the  female  cruelly  beaten,  or  wounded  with  a  spear,  the  man 
in  most  cases  remaining  unpunished.  Very  seldom  are  men 
allowed  to  retain  as  wives  their  partners  in  these  escapades. 
Though  I  have  been  acquainted  with  many  tribes,  and  heard 
matters  of  the  sort  talked  over  in  several  of  them,  I  never 
knew  but  three  instances  of  permanent  runaway  matches  ; 
two  in  which  men  obtained  as  wives  women  already  married 
in  the  tribe,  and  one  case  in  which  the  woman  was  a  stranger." 

William  Jackman,  who  was  held  as  a  captive  by  the  natives 
for  seventeen  months,  tells  a  similar  story.  Elopements,  he 
says  (174),  are  usually  with  wives.  The  couple  escape  to  a 
distant  tribe  and  remain  a  few  months — rarely  more  than 
seven  or  eight,  so  far  as  he  observed  ;  then  the  faithless  wife 
is  returned  to  her  husband  and  the  elopers  are  punished  more 
or  less  severely.  "At  times,"  we  read  in  Spencer  and  Grillen 
(556,  558),  "  the  eloping  couple  are  at  once  followed  up  and 
then,  if  caught,  the  woman  is,  if  not  killed  on  the  spot,  at  all 
events  treated  in  such  a  way  that  any  further  attempt  at 
elopement  on  her  part  is  not  likely  to  take  place."  Some- 
times the  husband  seems  glad  to  have  got  rid  of  his  wife,  for 
when  the  elopers  return  to  camp  he  first  has  his  revenge  by 
cutting  the  legs  and  body  of  both  and  then  he  cries  "  You 
keep  altogether,  I  throw  away,  I  throw  away." 

It  is  instructive  to  note  with  what  ingenuity  the  natives 
seek  to  prevent  matches  based  on  mutual  inclination.  Tap- 
lin  says  (11)  of  the  Narrinyeri  that  "a  young  woman  who 
goes  away  with  a  man  and  lives  with  him  as  his  wife  without 
the  consent  of  her  relatives  is  regarded  as  very  little  better 
than  a  prostitute."  Among  these  same  Narrinyeri,  says 
Gason,  "  it  is  considered  disgraceful  for  a  woman  to  take  a 
husband  who  has  given  no  other  woman  for  her."  (Bonwick, 
245.)  The  deliberate  animosity  against  free  choice  is  empha- 
sized by  a  statement  in  Brough  Smyth  (79),  that  if  the  owner 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   ELOPEMENTS          455 

of  an  eloping  female  suspects  that  she  favored  the  man  she 
eloped  with,  "he  will  not  hesitate  to  maim  or  kill  her."  She 
must  have  no  choice  or  preference  of  her  own,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. It  must  be  remembered,  too,  that  even  an  actual 
elopement  by  no  means  proves  that  the  woman  is  following 
a  special  inclination.  She  may  be  merely  anxious  to  get  away 
from  a  cruel  or  superannuated  husband.  In  such  cases  the 
woman  may  take  the  initiative.  Dawson  (65)  once  said  to  a 
native,  "  You  should  not  have  carried  Mary  away  from  her 
husband"  ;  to  which  the  man  replied,  " Bael  (not)  dat,  massa; 
Mary  come  me.  Dat  husband  wurry  bad  man  :  he  waddy 
(beat)  Mary.  Mary  no  like  it,  so  it  leabe  it.  Dat  fellow  no 
good,  massa." 

Obviously,  Australian  elopement  not  only  gives  110  indication 
of  romantic  feelings,  but  even  as  an  incident  it  is  apt  to  be 
prosaic  or  cruel  rather  than  romantic,  as  our  elopements  are. 
In  many  cases  it  is  hard  to  distinguish  from  brutal  capture, 
as  we  may  infer  from  an  incident  related  by  Curr  (108-9). 
He  was  sleeping  at  a  station  on  the  Lachlan. 

"  During  the  night  I  was  awoke  by  the  scream  of  a  woman, 
and  a  general  yell  from  the  men  in  the  camp.  Not  knowing 
what  could  be  the  matter,  I  seized  a  weapon,  jumped  out  of 
bed,  and  rushed  outside.  There  I  found  a  young  married 
woman  standing  by  her  fire,  trembling  all  over,  with  a  barbed 
spear  through  her  thigh.  As  for  the  men,  they  were  rushing 
about,  here  and  there,  in  an  excited  state,  with  their  spears 
in  their  hands.  The  woman's  story  was  soon  told.  She  had 
gone  to  the  river,  not  fifty  yards  off,  for  water  ;  the  Darling 
black  had  stolen  after  her,  and  proposed  to  her  to  elope  with 
him,  and,  on  her  declining  to  do  so,  had  speared  her  and 
taken  to  his  heels." 

A  pathetic  instance  of  the  cruel  treatment  to  which  the 
natives  subject  girls  who  venture  to  have  inclinations  of  their 
own  was  communicated  by  W.  E.  Stanbridge  to  Brough 
Smyth  (80).  The  scene  is  a  little  dell  among  undulating 
grassy  plains.  In  the  lower  part  of  the  dell  a  limpid  spring 
bursts  forth. 

"  On  one  side  of  this  dell,  and  nearest  to  the  spring  at  the 


456  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

foot  of  it,  lies  a  young  woman,  about  seventeen  years  of  age, 
sobbing  and  partly  supported  by  her  mother,  in  the  midst  of 
wailing,  weeping,  women  ;  she  has  been  twice  speared  in  the 
right  breast  with  a  jagged  hand-spear  by  her  brother,  and  is 
supposed  to  be  dying." 


CHAKMING   A    WOMAN    BY   MAGIC 

Besides  the  three  ways  already  mentioned  of  securing  a  wife 
—elopement,  which  is  rare  ;  capture,  which  is  rarer  still,  and 
Tuelcha  mura,  in  which  a  girl  is  assigned  to  a  man  before  she  is 

born,  and  while  her  prospective  mother  is  still  a  girl  herself 

by  far  the  commonest  arrangement — there  is  a  fourth,  charm- 
ing by  magic.  Of  this,  too,  Spencer  and  Gillen  have  given 
the  best  description  (541-44).  When  a  man,  they  tell  us, 
wants  to  charm  a  woman  belonging  to  a  distant  tribe  he  takes 
a  clmringa,  or  sacred  stick,  and  goes  with  some  friends  into 
the  bush,  where 

"all  night  long  the  men  keep  up  a  low  singing  of  Quabara 
songs,  together  with  the  chanting  of  amorous  phrases  of  invi- 
tation addressed  to  the  woman.  At  daylight  the  man  stands 
up  alone  and  swings  the  cliuringa,  causing  it  first  to  strike 
the  ground  as  he  whirls  it  round  and  round  and  makes  it 
hum.  His  friends  remain  silent,  and  the  sound  of  the  hum- 
ming is  carried  to  the  ears  of  the  far-distant  woman,  and  has 
the  power  of  compelling  affection  and  of  causing  her  sooner  or 
later  to  comply  with  the  summons.  Not  long  ago,  at  Alice 
Springs,  a  man  called  some  of  his  friends  together  and  per- 
formed the  ceremony,  and  in  a  very  short  time  the  desired 
woman,  who  was  on  this  occasion  a  widow,  came  in  from 
Glen  Helen,  about  fifty  miles  to  the  west  of  Alice  Springs, 
and  the  two  are  now  man  and  wife. " 

The  woman  in  this  case  need  not  be  a  widow,  however. 
Another  man's  wife  will  do  just  as  well,  and  if  her  owner 
comes  armed  to  stop  proceedings,  the  friends  of  the  charmer 
stand  by  him. 

Another  method  of  obtaining  a  wife  by  magic  is  by  means 
of  a  charmed  cliilara,  or  head-band  of  opossum  fur.  The 
man  charms  it  in  secret  by  singing  over  it.  Then  he  places 


CHARMING   A   WOMAN   BY   MAGIC  457 

it  on  his  head  and  wears  it  about  the  camp  so  that  the  wom- 
an can  see  it.  Her  attention  is  drawn  to  it,  and  she  be- 
comes violently  attached  to  the  man,  or,  as  the  natives  say, 
"  her  internal  organs  shake  with  eagerness."  Here,  again, 
it  makes  no  difference  whether  the  woman  be  married  or 
not. 

Still  another  way  of  charming  a  woman  is  by  means  of  a 
certain  shell  ornament,  which  a  man  ties  to  his  waist-belt  at 
a  corrobboree  after  having  charmed  it.1  "  While  he  is  danc- 
ing the  woman  whom  he  wishes  to  attract  alone  sees  the  light- 
ning flashes  on  the  Lonka-lonka,  and  all  at  once  her  internal 
organs  shake  with  emotion.  If  possible  she  will  creep  into 
his  camp  that  night  or  take  the  earliest  opportunity  to  run 
away  with  him." 

Here,  at  last,  we  have  come  across  a  method  which  "  allows 
of  the  breaking  through  of  the  hard  and  fast  rule  which  for 
the  most  part  obtains,  and  according  to  which  the  woman  be- 
longs to  the  man  to  whom  she  has  been  betrothed,  probably 
before  her  birth."  Yet  these  cases  are  rare  exceptions,  for, 
as  the  authors  inform  us,  "  the  woman  naturally  runs  some 
risk,  as,  if  caught  in  the  act  of  eloping,  she  would  be  severely 
punished,  if  not  put  to  death  ; "  and  again  :  these  cases  are 
not  of  frequent  occurrence,  for  they  depend  on  the  woman's 
consent,  and  she  knows  that  if  caught  she  will  in  all  proba- 
bility be  killed,  or  at  least  very  roughly  handled.  Hence 
she  is  "not  very  easily  charmed  away  from  her  original  pos- 
sessor." Moreover,  even  these  adulterous  elopements  seldom 
lead  to  anything  more  than  a  temporary  liaison,  as  we  have 
seen,  and  it  would  be  comic  to  speak  of  a  "  liberty  of  choice  " 
in  cases  where  such  a  choice  can  be  exercised  only  at  the  risk 
of  being  killed  on  the  spot. 

1  The  reader  will  note  that  here  are  some  additional  objects  usually  sup- 
posed to  be  "ornamental,"  but  which,  as  in  all  the  cases  examined  in  the 
chapter  on  Personal  Beauty,  are  seen  on  close  examination  to  serve  other  than 
esthetic  purposes.  These  are  intended  to  charm  the  women,  not,  however,  as 
tilings  of  beauty,  but  by  their  magic  qualities  and  by  attracting  their  attention. 


458  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 


OTHER   OBSTACLES   TO   LOVE 

Looking  back  over  the  ground  traversed  in  this  chapter,  we 
see  that  Cupid  is  thwarted  in  Australia  not  only  by  the  nat- 
ural stupidity,  coarseness,  and  sensuality  of  the  natives,  but 
by  a  number  of  artifical  obstacles  which  seem  to  have  been 
devised  with  almost  diabolical  ingenuity  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  stifling  the  germs  of  love.  The  selfish,  systematic,  and 
deliberate  suppression  of  free  choice  is  only  one  of  these  ob- 
stacles. There  are  two  others  almost  equally  fatal  to  love — the 
habit  of  marrying  young  girls  to  men  old  enough  to  be  their 
fathers  or  grandfathers,  and  the  complicated  marriage  taboos. 
We  have  already  seen  that  as  a  rule  the  old  men  appropriate 
the  young  girls,  the  younger  men  not  being  allowed  to  marry 
till  they  are  twenty-five  or  thirty,  and  even  then  being  com- 
pelled to  take  an  old  man's  cast-off  wife  of  thirty-five  or 
forty  summers.  "It  is  usual,"  says  Gurr  (I.,  110),  to  see 
old  men  with  mere  girls  as  wives,  and  men  in  the  prime  of 
life  married  to  widows.  .  .  .  Women  have  very  fre- 
quently two  husbands  during  their  life-time,  the  first  older 
and  the  second  younger  than  themselves.  .  .  .  There  are 
always  many  bachelors  in  every  tribe."1  Not  to  speak  of 
love,  this  arrangement  makes  it  difficult  even  for  animal 
passion  to  manifest  itself  except  in  an  adulterous  or  illegiti- 
mate manner. 

"  At  present,"  we  learn  from  Spencer  and  Gillen  (104, 
558),  "  by  far  the  most  common  method  of  getting  a  wife  is  by 
means  of  an  arrangement  made  between  brothers  or  fathers 
of  the  respective  men  and  women  whereby  a  particular 
woman  is  assigned  to  a  particular  man."  This  most  usual 
method  of  getting  a  wife  is  also  the  most  extraordinary. 
Suppose  one  man  has  a  son,  another  a  daughter,  generally 
both  of  tender  age.  Now  it  would  be  bad  enough  to  be- 
troth these  two  without  their  consent  and  before  they  are 

1  With  his  usual  conscientious  regard  for  facts  Westermarck  declares  (70) 
that  in  a  savage  condition  of  life  "every  full-grown  man  marries  as  soon  as 
possible." 


MARRIAGE   TABOOS   AND    "INCEST"         459 

old  enough  to  have  any  real  choice.  But  the  Australian  way 
is  infinitely  worse.  It  is  arranged  that  the  girl  in  the  case 
shall  be,  by  and  by,  not  the  boy's  wife,  but  his  mother-in- 
law  ;  that  is,  the  boy  is  to  wed  her  daughter.  In  other 
words,  he  must  wait  not  only  till  she  is  old  enough  to  marry 
but  till  her  daughter  is  old  enough  to  marry  !  And  this  is 
"  by  far  the  most  common  method  "  ! 

MARRIAGE   TABOOS   AND    "  INCEST." 

The  marriage  taboos  are  no  less  artificial,  absurd,  and  fatal 
to  free  choice  and  love.  An  Australian  is  not  only  forbidden 
to  marry  a  girl  who  is  closely  related  to  him  by  blood — some- 
times the  prohibition  extends  to  first,  second,  and  even  third 
cousins — but  he  must  not  think  of  such  a  thing  as  marrying  a 
woman  having  his  family  name  or  belonging  to  certain  tribes 
or  clans — his  own,  his  mother's  or  grandmother's,  his  neigh- 
bor's, or  one  speaking  his  dialect,  etc.  The  result  is  more 
disastrous  than  one  unfamiliar  with  Australian  relation- 
ships would  imagine ;  for  these  relationships  are  so  compli- 
cated that  to  unravel  them  takes,  in  the  words  of  Howitt 
(59),  "  a  patience  compared  with  which  that  of  Job  is  furi- 
ous irritability." 

These  prohibitions  are  not  to  be  trifled  with.  They  extend 
even  to  war  captives.  If  a  couple  disregard  them  and 
elope,  they  are  followed  by  the  indignant  relatives  in  hot 
pursuit  and,  if  taken,  severely  punished,  perhaps  even  put  to 
death.  (Howitt,  300,  66.)  Of  the  Kamilaroi  the  same  writer 
says  :  "  Should  a  man  persist  in  keeping  a  woman  who  is 
denied  to  him  by  their  laws,  the  penalty  is  that  he  should  be 
driven  out  from  the  society  of  his  friends  and  quite  ignored. 
If  that  does  not  cure  his  fondness  for  the  woman,  his  male 
relatives  follow  him  and  kill  him,  as  a  disgrace  to  their  tribe, 
and  the  female  relatives  of  the  woman  kill  her  for  the  same 
reason." 

It  is  a  mystery  to  anthropologists  how  these  marriage  ta- 
boos, these  notions  of  real  or  fancied  incest,  could  have  ever 
arisen.  Curr  (I.,  236)  remarks  pointedly  that  "most  per- 


460  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

sons  who  have  any  practical  knowledge  of  our  savages  will,  I 
think,  bear  me  out  when  I  assert  that,  whatever  their  ob- 
jections to  consanguineous  marriages  may  be,  they  have  no 
more  idea  of  the  advantages  of  this  or  that  sort  of  breeding, 
or  of  any  laws  of  Nature  bearing  on  the  question,  than  they 
have  of  differential  calculus.  " l 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  these  prohibitions, 
it  is  obvious  that,  as  I  have  said,  they  acted  as  obstacles  to 
love  ;  and  what  is  more,  in  many  cases  they  seem  to  have 
impeded  legitimate  marriage  only,  without  interfering  with 
licentious  indulgence.  Eoth  (67)  cites  O'Donnell  to  the  ef- 
fect that  with  the  Kunandaburi  tribe  the  jus  prima  noctis  is 
allowed  all  the  men  present  at  the  camp  without  regard  to 
class  or  kin.  He  also  cites  Beveridge,  who  had  lived  twenty- 
three  years  in  contact  with  the  Riverina  tribes  and  who  as- 
sured him  that,  apart  from  marrying,  there  was  no  restriction 
on  intercourse.  In  his  book  on  South  Australia  J.  D.  AVood 
says  (403)  :  "  The  fact  that  marriage  does  not  take  place  be- 
tween members  of  the  same  tribe,  or  is  forbidden  amongst 
them,  does  not  at  all  include  the  idea  that  chastity  is  observed 
within  the  same  limits."  Brough  Smyth  (II.,  92)  refers  to 
the  fact  that  secret  violations  of  the  rule  against  fornication 
within  the  forbidden  classes  were  not.  punished.  Bonwick 
(62)  cites  the  Rev.  C.  Wilhelmi  on  the  Port  Lincoln  customs: 
"  There  are  no  instances  of  two  Karraris  or  two  Matteris  hav- 
ing been  married  together  ;  and  yet  connections  of  a  less  vir- 
tuous character,  which  take  place  between  members  of  the 
same  caste,  do  not  appear  to  be  considered  incestuous." 
Similar  testimony  is  adduced  by  Waitz-Gerland  (VI.,  776), 
and  others. 

1  We  are  occasionally  warned  not  to  underrate  the  intelligence  of  the  aboriginal 
Australian.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  more  danger  of  its  being  overrated. 
Thus  it  was  long  believed  that  what  was  known  as  the  "terrible  rite  "  (finditur 
nxque  ad  urethram  membrum  virile  —  see  Curr  L,  52,  72 —  was  practised  as  a 
check  to  population  ;  but  surgeon-general  Roth  (179)  has  exploded  this  idea,  and 
made  it  seem  probable  that  this  rite  is  merely  a  senseless  counterpart  of  cer- 
tain useless  mutilations  inflicted  on  females. 


AFFECTION    FOR    WOMEN    AND    DOGS         461 


AFFECTION-    FOR   WOMEN   AND    DOGS 

There  is  a  strange  class  of  men  who  always  stand  with  a 
brush  in  hand  ready  to  whitewash  any  degraded  creature,  he 
he  the  devil  himself.  For  want  of  a  better  name  they  are 
called  sentimentalists,  and  they  are  among  men  what  the  mor- 
bid females  who  bring  bouquets  and  sympathy  to  fiendish 
murderers  are  among  women.  The  Australian,  unutterably 
degraded,  particularly  in  his  sexual  relations,  as  the  foregoing 
pages  show  him  to  be,  has  had  his  champions  of  the  type  of 
the  "fearless"  Stephens.  There  is  another  class  of  writers 
who  create  confusion  by  their  reckless  use  of  words.  Thus 
the  Rev.  G.  Taplin  asserts (12)  that  he  has  "known  as  well- 
matched  and  loving  couples  amongst  the  aborigines  "  as  he 
has  amongst  Europeans.  What  does  he  mean  by  loving 
couples  ?  What,  in  his  opinion,  are  the  symptoms  of  affec- 
tion ?  With  amusing  naivete  he  reveals  his  ideas  on  the 
subject  in  a  passage  (11)  which  he  quotes  approvingly  from 
H.  E.  A.  Meyer  to  the  effect  that  if  a  young  bride  pleases 
her  husband,  "  he  shows  his  affection  by  frequently  rubbing 
her  with  grease  to  improve  her  personal  appearance,  and 
with  the  idea  that  it  will  make  her  grow  rapidly  and  be- 
come fat."  If  such  selfish  love  of  obesity  for  sensual  pur- 
poses merits  the  name  of  affection,  I  cheerfully  grant  that 
Australians  are  capable  of  affection  to  an  unlimited  degree. 
Taplin,  furthermore,  admits  that  t(  as  wives  got  old,  they 
were  often  cast  off  by  their  husbands,  or  given  to  young  men 
in  exchange  for  their  sisters  or  other  relations  at  their  dis- 
posal "  (XXXI.)  ;  and  again  (121)  :  "  From  childhood  to  old 
age  the  gratification  of  appetite  and  passion  is  the  sole  pur- 
pose of  life  to  the  savage.  He  seeks  to  extract  the  utmost 
sweetness  from  mere  animal  pleasures,  and  consequently  his 
nature  becomes  embruted."  Taplin  does  not  mention  a 
single  act  of  conjugal  devotion  or  self-sacrifice,  such  as  con- 
stitutes the  sole  criterion  of  affection.  Nor  in  the  hundreds 
of  books  and  articles  on  Australia  that  I  have  read  have  I 
come  across  a  single  instance  of  this  kind.  On  the  subject  of 


462  ABORIGINAL  AUSTRALIAN  LOVE 

the  cruel  treatment  of  women  all  the  observers  are  eloquent ; 
had  they  seen  any  altruistic  actions,  would  they  have  failed 
to  make  a  record  of  them  ? 

The  Australian's  attachment  to  his  wife  is  evidently  a  good 
deal  like  his  love  of  his  dog.  Gason  (259)  tells  us  that  the 
dogs,  of  which  every  camp  has  from  six  to  twenty,  are  gen- 
erally a  mangy  lot,  but  "  the  natives  are  very  fond  of  them. 

.  .  If  a  white  man  wants  to  offend  a  native  let  him  beat 
his  dog.  I  have  seen  women  crying  over  a  dog,  when  bitten 
by  snakes,  as  if  over  their  own  children."  The  dogs  are  very 
useful  to  them,  helping  them  to  find  snakes,  rats,  and  other 
animals  for  food.  Yet,  when  mealtime  comes,  "  the  dog, 
notwithstanding  its  services  and  their  affection  for  it,  fares 
very  badly,  receiving  nothing  but  the  bones/'  ' '  Hence  the  dog 
is  always  in  very  low  condition."  Another  writer *  with  a  better 
developed  sense  of  humor,  says  that  "  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  man  does  not  value  his  dog,  when  alive,  quite  as 
much  as  he  does  his  woman,  and  think  of  both  quite  as  often 
and  lovingly  after  he  has  eaten  them." 

As  for  the  women,  they  are  little  better  than  the  men. 
What  Mitchell  says  of  them  (L,307)  is  characteristic.  After 
a  fight,  he  says,  the  women  "  do  not  always  follow  their  fugi- 
tive husbands  from  the  field,  but  frequently  go  over,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  to  the  victors,  even  with  young  children  on 
their  backs  ;  and  thus  it  was,  probably,  that  after  we  had 
made  the  lower  tribes  sensible  of  our  superiority,  that  the 
three  gins  followed  our  party,  beseeching  us  to  take  them  with 
us."  The  following  from  Grey  (II.,  230)  gives  us  an  idea  of 
wifely  affection  and  fidelity  :  "  The  women  have  generally  some 
favorite  amongst  the  young  men,  always  looking  forward  to 
be  his  wife  at  the  death  of  her  husband."  How  utterly  be- 
yond the  Australian  horizon  was  the  idea  of  common  decency, 
not  to  speak  of  such  a  holy  thing  as  affection,  is  revealed  by 
a  cruel  custom  described  by  Howitt  (344)  :  "  The  Kurnai 
and  the  Brajerak  were  not  intermarrying  tribes,  unless  by 
capture,  and  in  this  case  each  man  took  the  woman  whose 
husband  he  had  been  the  first  to  spear."  It  would  of  course 

*  Trans.  Eth.  Soc.,  New  Ser.,  III.,  348. 


AFFECTION   FOR   WOMEN  AND   DOGS        463 

be  absurd  to  suppose  the  widows  in  such  cases  capable  of  suf- 
fering as  our  women  would  under  such  circumstances.  They 
are  quite  as  callous  and  cruel  as  the  men.  Evidence  is  given 
in  the  Jack  man  book  (149)  that,  like  Indian  women,  they 
torture  prisoners  of  war,  breaking  toes,  fingers,  and  arms, 
digging  out  the  eyes  and  filling  the  sockets  with  hot  sand,  etc. 
"  Husbands  rarely  show  much  affection  for  their  wives/' 
wrote  Eyre  (II.,  214).  "After  a  long  absence  I  have  seen 
natives,  upon  their  return,  go  to  their  camp,  exhibiting  the 
most  stoical  indifference,  never  taking  the  least  notice  of  their 
wives."  Elsewhere  (321)  he  says,  with  reference  to  the  fact 
that  marriage  is  not  regarded  as  any  pledge  of  chastity,  which 
is  not  recognized  as  a  virtue  :  "  But  little  real  affection  con- 
sequently exists  between  husbands  and  wives,  and  younger 
men  value  a  wife  principally  for  her  services  as  a  slave."  And 
in  a  Latin  footnote,  in  which  he  describes  the  licentious  cus- 
toms of  promiscuous  intercourse  and  the  harsh  treatment  of 
women,  he  adds  (320),  "  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  there  can 
hardly  be  much  love  among  husbands  and  wives."  He  also 
gives  this  particular  instance  of  conjugal  indifference  and 
cruelty.  In  1842  the  wife  of  a  native  in  Adelaide,  a  girl  of 
about  eighteen,  was  confined  and  recovered  slowly.  Before 
she  was  well  the  tribe  removed  from  the  locality.  The  hus- 
band preferred  accompanying  them,  and  left  his  wife  to  die 
unattended.  William  Jackman,  the  Englishman  who  lived 
seventeen  months  as  a  captive  among  the  natives,  says  (118) 
that  '"'  wife-killing,  among  the  aborigines  of  Australia,  is  fre- 
quent and  elicits  neither  surprise  nor  any  sort  of  animadver- 
sion." By  way  of  illustrating  this  remark  he  relates  how, 
one  day,  he  returned  with  a  native  from  an  unsuccessful  hunt. 
The  native's  twelve-year-old  wife  had  caught  an  opossum, 
roasted  it,  and,  impelled  by  hunger,  had  begun  to  eat  it  in- 
stead of  saving  it  for  her  master — an  atrocious  crime.  For 
fifteen  minutes  the  husband  sat  in  silent  rage  which  his  feat- 
ures betrayed.  Presently  he  jumped  up  with  the  air  of  a  de- 
mon, 

"  scooped  his  two  hands  full  of  embers  and  burning  sand, 
and  flung  the  whole  into  the  face  and  bosom  of  the  naked 


464  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

object  of  his  vengeance  ;  for  I  must  repeat  that  none  of  the 
natives  wear  any  clothing,  and  that  she  was  sitting  there  as 
nude  as  when  she  was  born.  The  devil  of  his  nature  thus 
fairly  aroused,  he  sprang  for  his  spear.  It  transfixed  his 
frantic  but  irresisting  victim.  She  fell  dead.  .  .  .  Save 
by  the  women  of  the  tribe,  the  affair  was  scarcely  noticed." 


A   HORRIBLE    CUSTOM 

Suppose  this  young  wife  had  saved  the  opossum  for  her  hus- 
band. He  would  then  have  eaten  it  and,  in  accordance  with 
their  universal  custom,  have  thrown  her  the  bones  to  share 
with  the  dog.  After  that  he  might  have  rubbed  her  with 
grease  and  indulged  in  sensual  caresses.  Would  that  have 
proved  his  capacity  for  affection  ?  Would  you  call  a  mother 
affectionate  who  fondled  her  child,  but  allowed  it  to  starve 
while  she  gratified  her  own  appetite  ?  The  only  sure  test  of 
affection  lies  in  disinterested  actions  of  self-sacrifice  ;  and 
even  actions  may  sometimes  mislead  us.  Thus  several  au- 
thors have  been  led  into  absurdly  erroneous  conclusions  by 
a  horrible  custom  prevalent. among  the  natives,  and  thus  de- 
scribed by  Curr  (I.,  89)  :  "In  some  cases  a  woman  is  ob- 
liged by  custom  to  roll  up  the  remains  of  her  deceased  child 
in  a  variety  of  rags,  making  them  into  a  package,  which  she 
carries  about. with  her  for  several  months,  and  at  length  buries. 
On  it  she  lays  her  head  at  night,  and  the  odor  is  so  horrible 
that  it  pervades  the  whole  camp,  and  not  unfrequently  costs 
the  mother  her  life."  Angas  (I.,  75)  refers  to  this  custom 
and  exclaims,  rapturously,  "Oh  !  how  strong  is  a  mother's 
love  when  even  the  offensive  and  putrid  clay  can  be  thus 
worshipped  for  the  spirit  that  once  was  its  tenant "(! !).  Angas 
was  an  uneducated  scribbler,  but  what  shall  we  say  on  find- 
ing his  sentimental  view  accepted  by  the  professional  German 
anthropologists,  Gerland  (VI.,  780)  and  Jung  (109)  ?  Anyone 
familiar  with  Australian  life  must  suspect  at  once  that  this 
custom  is  simply  one  of  the  horrible  modes  of  punishment 
devised  for  women.  Curr  says  the  woman  is  "obliged  by  cus- 
tom "  to  carry  her  dead  child,  and  he  adds  :  "I  believe  that 
this  practice  is  insisted  on  when  a  young  mother  loses  her 


ROMANTIC   AFFLICTION  465 

first  born,  as  the  death  of  the  child  is  thought  to  have  come 
about  by  carelessness."  To  suppose  that  Australian  mothers 
who  usually  kill  all  but  two  of  their  six  or  more  children 
could  be  capable  of  such  an  act  for  sentimental  reasons  is  to 
show  a  logical  faculty  on  a  par  with  the  Australian's  own. 
This  point  has  already  been  discussed,  but  a  further  instance 
related  by  Dr.  Moorehouse  (J.  D.  Wood,  390),  will  bring  the 
matter  home : 

"  A  female  just  born  was  thus  about  to  be  destroyed  for 
the  benefit  of  a  boy  about  four  years  old,  whom  the  mother 
was  nourishing,  while  the  father  was  standing  by,  ready  to 
commit  the  deed.  Through  the  kindness  of  a  lady  to  whom 
the  circumstances  became  known,  and  our  joint  interference, 
this  one  life  was  saved,  and  the  child  was  properly  attended 
to  by  the  mother,  although  she  at  first  urged  the  necessity  of 
its  death  as  strenuously  as  the  father."  "In  other  parts  of 
the  country,"  Wood  adds,  "  the  women  do  the  horrible  work 
themselves.  They  are  not  content  with  destroying  the  life 
of  the  infants,  but  they  eat  them." 


ROMANTIC   AFFLICTION 

Here,  as  in  several  of  the  alleged  cases  of  African  sentimen- 
tality, we  see  the  great  need  of  caution  and  detective  sagacity 
in  interpreting  facts.  To  take  another  instance  :  Wester- 
marck  (503),  in  his  search  for  cases  of  romantic  attachment 
and  absorbing  passion  among  savages,  fancies  he  has  come 
across  one  in  Australia,  for  he  tells  as  that  "  even  the  rude 
Australian  girl  sings  in  a  strain  of  romantic  affliction — 

'l  never  shall  see  my  darling  again. '  " 

As  a  matter  of  fact  this  line  has  no  more  to  do  with  the 
"true  monogamous  instinct,  the  absorbing  passion  for  one," 
than  with  Julius  Caesar.  Eyre  relates  (310,  70)  that  when 
Miago,  the  first  native  who  ever  quitted  Perth,  was  taken 
away  on  the  Beagle  in  1838,  his  mother  sang  during  his 
absence  : 

"Whither  does  that  lone  ship  wander, 
My  young  son  I  shall  never  see  again. 


466  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

Grosse,  who  often  sides  with  Wester  mar  ck,  here  parts  com- 
pany with  him,  being  convinced  that 

"what  is  called  love  in  Australia  .  .  .  is  no  spiritual 
affection,  but  a  sensual  passion,  which  is  quickly  cooled  in 
the  enjoyment.  .  .  .  The  only  examples  of  sympathetic 
lyrics  that  have  been  found  in  Australia  are  mourning  songs, 
and  even  they  relate  only  to  relatives  by  blood  and  tribal 
affinity"  (B.  A.,  244).1 


A   LOCK   OF   HAIR 

A  more  subtle  problem  than  those  so  far  considered  is  pre- 
sented by  a  courtship  custom  described  by  Bulmer  (Brough 
Smyth,  82-84).  The  natives  are  very  superstitious  in  regard 
to  their  hair.  They  carefully  destroy  any  that  has  been  cut 
off  and  would  be  greatly  frightened  to  know  it  had  fallen  into 
another  person's  hands,  as  that  would  place  their  health  and 
life  in  jeopardy  at  the  other's  will.  Yet  a  girl  who  has  a  lover 
will  not  hesitate  to  give  him  a  lock  of  her  hair.  It  seems 
impossible  to  deny  that  this  is  a  touch  of  true  sentiment,  of 
romantic  love  ;  and  Bulmer  accordingly  calls  this  lock  of  hair 
a  "  token  of  affection/'  But  is  it  a  token  of  affection  ?  The 
sequel  will  show.  In  due  course  of  time  the  couple  elope  ;  in 
the  black  of  the  night  they  take  to  the  bush.  Great  excite- 
ment prevails  in  camp  when  they  are  found  missing.  They 
are  called  "  long-legged/'  "  thin-legged,"  "  squint-eyed,"  or 
"  big-headed."  Search  is  made,  the  pair  are  tracked  and 
caught,  and  both  are  cruelly  beaten.  They  make  a  promise 
not  to  repeat  the  offence,  but  do  not  keep  it ;  another  elope- 
ment follows,  with  more  beatings.  At  last  the  girl  becomes 
afraid  to  elope  again.  She  alters  her  tactics,  feigns  a  severe 
illness,  and  the  parents  are  alarmed.  Then  she  remembers 
that  her  lover  has  a  lock  of  her  hair.  He  is  made  to  confess, 
and  another  fight  follows.  He  is  half  killed,  but  after  that 
he  is  allowed  to  keep  the  girl. 

1  Gerland  (VI.,  756)  makes  the  same  mistake  here  as  Westermarck.  He 
also  refers  to  Petermann's  Mittheilungen  for  another  case  of  "romantic  love." 
On  consulting  that  periodical  (1856,  451)  I  find  that  the  proof  of  such  love  lay  in 
the  circumstance  that  in  the  quarrels  so  common  in  Australian  camps,  wires 
would  not  hesitate  to  join  in  and  help  their  husbands  ! 


TWO    NATIVE   STORIES  467 

•  Thus  we  see  that  the  lock,  instead  of  being  a  "  token  of 
affection/'  as  Bulmer  would  have  us  believe,  and  as  it  would 
be  in  our  community,  is  not  even  a  sentimental  sign  of  the 
girl's  confidence  in  her  lover,  but  merely  a  detail  of  a  foolish 
custom  and  stupid  superstition. 


TWO   NATIVE   STORIES 

As  a  matter  of  course  Australian  folk-lore,  too,  shows  no 
traces  of  the  existence  of  love.  The  nearest  approach  to  such 
a  thing  I  have  been  able  to  find  is  a  quaint  story  about  a 
man  who  wanted  two  wives  and  of  how  he  got  them.  It  is 
takjen  from  Mrs.  K.  Langloh  Parker's  Australian  Legendary 
Tales  and  the  substance  of  it  is  as  follows  : 

Wurrunnah,  after  a  long  day's  hunting,  came  back  to  the 
camp  tired  and  hungry.  His  mother  had  nothing  for  him  to 
eat  and  no  one  else  would  give  him  anything.  He  flew  into 
a  rage  and  said  :  "  I  will  go  into  a  far  country  and  live  with 
strangers  ;  my  people  would  starve  me."  He  went  away  and 
after  divers  strange  adventures  with  a  blind  man  and  em  as, 
who  were  really  black  fellows,  he  came  to  a  camp  where  there 
was  no  one  but  seven  young  girls.  They  were  friendly,  gave 
him  food,  and  allowed  him  to  camp  there  during  the  night. 
They  told  him  their  name  was  Meamei  and  their  tribe  in  a 
far  country  to  which  they  would  soon  return. 

The  next  day  Wurrunnah  went  away  as  if  leaving  for  good  ; 
but  he  determined  to  hide  near  and  watch  what  they  did,  and 
if  he  could  get  a  chance  he  would  steal  a  wife  from  among 
them.  He  was  tired  of  travelling  alone.  He  saw  them  all 
start  out  with  their  yam-sticks  in  hand.  Following  them  he 
saw  them  stop  by  the  nests  of  some  flying  ants  and  unearth 
the  ants.  Then  they  sat  down,  threw  their  yam-sticks  aside, 
and  ate  the  ants,  which  are  esteemed  a  great  delicacy.  While 
they  were  eating  Wurrunnah  sneaked  up  to  their  yam-sticks 
and  stole  two  of  them.  When  the  girls  had  eaten  all  they 
wanted  only  five  of  them  could  find  their  sticks  ;  so  those  five 
started  off,  expecting  that  the  other  two  would  soon  find  their 
sticks  and  follow  them. 

The  two  girls  hunted  all  around  the  ants'  nests,  but  could 
find  no  sticks.  At  last,  when  their  backs  were  turned  toward 
him,  Wurrunnah  crept  out  and  stuck  the  lost  yam-sticks  near 
together  in  the  ground  ;  then  he  slipped  back  to  his  hiding- 


468  ABORIGINAL    AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

place.  When  the  two  girls  turned  round,  there  in  front  of 
them  they  saw  their  sticks.  With  a  cry  of  joyful  surprise 
they  ran  to  them  and  caught  hold  of  them  to 'pull  them  out 
of  the  ground,  in  which  they  were  firmly  stuck.  As  they 
were  doing  so,  out  from  his  hiding-place  jumped  Wurrunmih. 
He  seized  both  girls  round  their  waists,  holding  them  tightly. 
They  struggled  and  screamed,  but  to  no  purpose.  There 
was  none  near  to  hear  them,  and  the  more  they  struggled 
the  tighter  Wurrunnah  held  them.  Finding  their  screams 
and  struggles  in  vain  they  quietened  at  length,  and  then 
Wurrunnah  told  them  not  to  be  afraid,  he  would  take  care 
of  them.  He  was  lonely,  he  said,  and  wanted  two  wives. 
They  must  come  quietly  with  him  and  he  would  be  good  to 
them.  But  they  must  do  as  he  told  them.  If  they  were  not 
quiet  he  would  swiftly  quieten  them  with  his  moorillah.  But 
if  they  would  come  quietly  with  him  he  would  be  good  to 
them.  Seeing  that  resistance  was  useless  the  two  young  girls 
complied  with  his  wish,  and  travelled  quietly  on  with  him. 
They  told  him  that  some  day  their  tribe  would  come  and 
steal  them  back  again  ;  to  avoid  which  he  travelled  quickly 
on  and  on  still  farther  hoping  to  elude  pursuit.  Some 
weeks  passed  and  he  told  his  wives  to  go  and  get  some  bark 
from  two  pine-trees  near  by.  They  declared  if  they  did  so 
he  would  never  see  them  again.  But  he  answered  "  Talk 
not  so  foolishly  ;  if  you  ran  away  soon  should  I  catch  you 
and,  catching  you,  would  beat  you  hard.  So  talk  no  more." 
They  went  and  began  to  cut  the  bark  from  the  trees.  As 
they  did  so  each  felt  that  her  tree  was  rising  higher  out  of 
the  ground  and  bearing  her  upward  with  it.  Higher  and 
higher  grew  the  pine-trees  and  up  with  them  went  the  girls 
until  at  last  the  tops  touched  the  sky.  Wurrunnah  called 
after  them,  but  they  listened  not.  Then  they  heard  the 
voices  of  their  five  sisters,  who  from  the  sky  stretched  forth 
their  hands  and  drew  the  two  others  in  to  live  with  them  in 
the  sky,  and  there  you  may  see  the  seven  sisters  together. 
We  know  them  as  the  Pleiades,  ,but  the  black  fellows  call 
them  the  Meamei. 

A  few  rather  improper  tales  regarding  the  sun  and  moon 
are  recorded  in  Woods's  Native  Tribes  by  Meyer,  who  thus 
sums  up  two  of  them  (200)  ;  the  other  being  too  obscene  for 
citation  here  : 

The  sun  they  consider  to  be  a  female,  who,  when  she  sets, 
passes  the  dwelling-places  of  the  dead.  As  she  approaches 
the  men  assemble  and  divide  into  two  bodies,  leaving  u 


BARRINGTON'S   LOVE-STORY  469 

road  for  her  to  pass  between  them  ;  they  invite  her  to  stay 
with  them,  which  she  can  only  do  for  a  short  time,  as  she 
must  be  ready  for  her  journey  for  the  next  day.  For  favors 
granted  to  some  one  among  them  she  receives  a  present  of  red 
kangaroo  skin  ;  and  therefore  in  the  morning,  when  she 
rises,  appears  in  a  red  dress. 

The  moon  is  also  a  woman,  and  not  particularly  chaste. 
She  stays  a  long  time  with  the  men,  and  from  the  effects  of 
her  intercourse  witl^  them,  she  becomes  very  thin  and  wastes 
away  to  a  mere  skeleton.  When  in  this  state,  Nurrunduri 
orders  her  to  be  driven  away.  She  flies,  and  is  secreted  for 
some  time,  but  is  employed  all  the  time  in  seeking  roots 
which  are  so  nourishing  that  in  a  short  time  she  appears 
again,  and  fills  out  and  becomes  fat  rapidly. 

Here  we  see  how  even  such  sublime  and  poetic  phenomena 
as  sun  and  moon  are  to  the  aboriginal  mind  only  symbols  of 
their  coarse,  sensual  lives  :  the  heavenly  bodies  are  concubines 
of  the  men,  welcomed  when  fat,  driven  away  when  thin. 
That  puts  the  substance  of  Australian  love  in  a  nutshell. 


BARRINGTON'S  LOVE-STORY 

In  the  absence  of  aboriginal  love-stories  let  us  amuse  our- 
selves by  examining  critically  a  few  more  of  the  alleged  cases 
of  romantic  love  discovered  by  Europeans.  The  erudite 
German  anthropologist  Gerland  expresses  his  belief  (VI., 
755)  that  notwithstanding  the  degradation  of  the  Australians 
"  cases  of  true  romantic  love  occur  among  them,"  and  he 
refers  for  an  instance  to  Barrington  (I.,  37).  On  consulting 
Barrington  I  find  the  following  incident  related  as  a  sample 
of  "  genuine  love  in  all  its  purity."  I  condense  the  unessen- 
tial parts  : 

A  young  man  of  twenty-three,  belonging  to  a  tribe  near 
Paramatta,  was  living  in  a  cave  with  two  sisters,  one  of  four- 
teen, the  other  of  twenty.  One  day  when  he  returned  from 
his  kangaroo  hunt  he  could  not  find  the  girls.  Thinking 
they  had  gone  to  fetch  water  or  roots  for  supper,  he  sat  down 
till  a  rain-storm  drove  him  into  the  cave,  where  he  stumbled 
over  the  prostrate  form  of  the  younger  sister.  She  was  lying 
in  a  pool  of  blood,  but  presently  regained  consciousness  and 


470  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

told  him  that  a  man  had  come  to  carry  off  her  sister,  after 
beating  her  on  the  head.  She  had  seized  the  sister's  arm  to 
hold  her  back  when  the  brute  knocked  her  over  with  his 
club  and  dragged  off  the  sister. 

It  was  too  late  to  take  revenge  that  day,  but  next  morning 
the  two  set  out  for  the  tribe  to  which  the  girl-robber  be- 
longed. As  they  approached  the  camp,  Barrington  contin- 
ues, 

"he  saw  the  sister  of  the  very  savage  who  had  stolen  his  sister  ; 
she  was  leaving  her  tribe  to  pick  some  sticks  for  a  fire  (this  was 
indeed  a  fine  opportunity  for  revenge)  ;  so  making  his  sister 
hide  herself,  he  flew  to  the  }roung  woman  and  lifted  up  his 
club  to  bring  her  to  the  ground,  and  thus  satisfy  his  revenge. 
The  victim  trembled,  yet,  knowing  his  power,  she  stood  with 
all  the  fortitude  she  could  ;  lifting  up  her  eyes,  they  came  in 
contact  with  his  and  such  was  the  enchanting  beauty  of  her 
form  (!)  that  he  stood  an  instant  motionless  to  gaze  on  it  (!). 
The  poor  thing  saw  this  and  dropped  on  her  knees  (!)  to  im- 
plore his  pity,  but  before  she  could  speak,  his  revenge  soft- 
ened into  love  (!)  ;  he  threw  down  his  club,  and  clasping  her 
in  his  arms  (!)  vowed  eternal  constancy  (!'!);  his  pity  gained 
her  love  (!),  thus  each  procured  a  mutual  return.  Then  call- 
ing his  sister,  she  would  have  executed  her  revenge,  but  for 
her  brother,  who  told  her  she  was  now  his  wife.  On  my  hero 
asking  after  his  sister,  his  new  wife  said  she  was  very  ill,  but 
would  soon  be  better  ;  and  she  excused  her  brother  (!)  be- 
cause the  means  he  had  taken  were  the  customary  one  of 
procuring  a  wife  (!!) ;  '  but  you/  said  she,  (  have  more  white 
heart '  (meaning  he  was  more  like  the  English),  '  you  no  beat 
me  ;  me  love  you  ;  you  love  me  ;  me  love  your  sisters ;  your 
sisters  love  me  ;  my  brother  no  good  man.'  This  artless  ad- 
dress won  both  their  hearts,  and  now  all  three  live  in  one 
hut  which  I  enabled  them  to  make  comfortable  within  half  a 
mile  of  my  own  house." 

Barrington  concludes  with  these  words  :  "  This  little  anec- 
dote I  have  given  as  the  young  man  related  it  to  me  and  per- 
haps I  have  lost  much  of  its  simplicity."  It  is  very  much  to 
be  feared  that  he  has.  I  have  marked  with  exclamation 
points  the  most  absurdly  impossible  parts  of  the  tale  as  ideal- 
ized and  embellished  by  Barrington.  The  Australian  never 
told  him  that  he  "gazed  motionless "  on  the  "enchanting 


RISKING   LIFE   FOR   A   WOMAN  471 

beauty  "  of  the  girl's  form  or  that  his  "  revenge  softened  into 
love  ; "  he  never  clasped  her  in  his  arms,  nor  "  vowed  eter- 
nal constancy."  The  girl  never  dreamt  of  saying  that  his 
pity  gained  her  love,  or  of  excusing  her  brother  for  doing 
what  all  Australian  men  do.  These  sentimental  touches  are 
gratuitous  additions  of  Barrington  ;  native  Australians  do 
not  even  clasp  each  other  in  their  arms,  and  they  are  as  in- 
capable of  vowing  eternal  constancy  as  of  comparing  Her- 
bert Spencer's  philosophy  with  Schopenhauer's.  Yet  on 
the  strength  of  such  dime  novel  rubbish  an  anthropologist 
assures  us  that  savages  are  capable  of  feeling  pure  romantic 
love  !  The  kernel  of  truth  in  the  above  tale  reduces  itself  to 
this,  that  the  young  man  whose  sister  was  stolen  intended  to 
take  revenge  by  killing  the  abductor,  but  that  on  seeing  his 
sister  he  concluded  to  marry  her.  These  savages,  as  we  have 
seen,  always  act  thus,  killing  the  enemy's  women  only  when 
unable  to  carry  them  off. 

RISKING    LIFE   FOR   A   WOMAN 

Lumholtz  relates  the  following  story  to  show  that  "  these 
blacks  also  may  be  greatly  overcome  by  the  sentiment  of 
love  "  (213)  : 

"  A  '  civilized  '  black  man  entered  a  station  on  Georgina 
River  and  carried  off  a  woman  who  belonged  to  a  young  black 
man  at  the  station.  She  loved  her  paramour  and  was  glad  to 
get  away  from  the  station  ;  but  the  whites  desired  to  keep  her 
for  their  black  servant,  as  he  could  not  be  made  to  stay 
without  her,  and  they  brought  her  back,  threatening  to  shoot 
the  stranger  if  he  came  again.  Heedless  of  the  threat,  he 
afterward  made  a  second  attempt  to  elope  with  his  beloved, 
but  the  white  men  pursued  the  couple  and  shot  the  poor 
fellow/' 

If  Lumholtz  had  reflected  for  a  moment  on  the  difference 
between  love  as  a  sentiment  and  love  as  an  appetite,  he  would 
have  realized  the  error  of  using  the  expression  "  the  senti- 
ment of  love"  in  connection  with  such  a  story  of  adulterous 
kidnapping,  in  which  there  is  absolutely  nothing  to  indicate 
whether  the  kidnapper  coveted  the  other  man's  wife  for  any 


472  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

other  than  the  most  carnal  reasons.  It  is  not  unusual  for 
an  Australian  to  risk  his  life  in  stealing  a  woman.  He  does 
that  every  time  he  captures  one  from  another  tribe.  In  men 
who  have  so  little  imaginative  faculty  as  these,  the  possibility 
of  being  killed  has  no  more  deterrent  effect  than  it  has  in 
two  dogs  or  stags  fighting  for  a  female.  We  must  not  judge 
such  indifference  to  deadly  consequences  from  our  point  of 
view. 

GERSTAECKER'S  LOVE-STORY 

Gerstaecker,  a  German  traveller,  who  traversed  a  part  of 
Australia,  has  a  tale  of  aboriginal  love  which  also  bears  the 
earmarks  of  fiction.  On  his  whole  trip,  he  says,  in  his  514- 
page  volume  devoted  to  Australia,  he  heard  of  only  one  case 
of  genuine  love.  A  young  man  of  the  Bamares  tribe  took  a 
fancy  to  a  girl  of  the  Rengmutkos.  She  was  also  pleased  with 
him  and  he  eloped  with  her  at  night,  taking  her  to  his  hunt- 
ing-ground on  the  river.  The  tribe  heard  of  his  escapade 
and  ordered  him  to  return  the  girl  to  her  home.  He  obeyed, 
but  two  weeks  later  eloped  with  her  again.  He  was  repri- 
manded and  informed  that  if  it  happened  again  he  would  be 
killed.  For  the  present  he  escaped  punishment  personally, 
but  was  ordered  to  cudgel  the  girl  and  then  send  her  back 
home.  He  obeyed  again  ;  the  girl  fell  down  before  him  and 
he  rained  hard  blows  011  her  head  and  shoulders  till  the 
elders  themselves  interceded  and  cried  enough.  The  girl 
was  chased  away  and  the  lover  remained  alone.  For  two 
days  he  refused  to  join  in  the  hunting  or  diversions  of  his 
companions.  On  the  third  day  he  ascended  an  eminence 
whence  the  Murray  Valley  can  be  seen.  In  the  distance  he 
saw  two  columns  of  smoke  ;  they  had  been  maintained  for  him 
all  this  time  by  his  girl.  He  took  his  spear  and  opossum  coat 
and  hastened  toward  the  columns  of  smoke.  He  was  about 
to  commit  his  third  offence,  which  meant  certain  death,  yet 
on  he  went  and  found  the  girl.  Her  wounds  were  not  yet 
healed,  but  she  hastened  to  meet  him  and  put  her  head  on 
his  bosom. 

This  tale  is  open  to  the  same  criticism  as  Lumholtz's.    The 


LOCAL   COLOR   IN   COURTSHIP  473 

man  risks  his  life,  not  for  another,  but  to  secure  what  he 
covets.  It  is  a  romantic  love-story,  but  there  is  no  indication 
anywhere  of  romantic  love,  while  some  of  the  details  are 
fictitiously  embellished.  An  Australian  girl  does  not  put 
her  head  on  her  lover's  bosom,  nor  could  she  camp  alone  and 
keep  up  two  columns  of  smoke  for  several  days  without  being 
discovered  and  kidnapped.  The  story  is  evidently  one  of  an 
ordinary  elopement,  embellished  by  European  fancy.1 


LOCAL   COLOR   IK   COURTSHIP 

There  is  some  quaint  local  color  in  Australian  courtship, 
but  usually  blows  play  too  important  a  role  to  make  their 
procedure  acceptable  to  anyone  with  a  less  waddy-proof  skull 
than  an  Australian.  Spencer  and  Gillen  relate  (556)  that  in 
cases  of  charming,  the  initiative  is  sometimes  taken  by  the 
woman,  "  who  can,  of  course,  imagine  that  she  has  been 
charmed,  and  then  find  a  willing  aider  and  abettor  in  the 
man  whose  vanity  is  flattered  by  this  response  to  his  magic 
power,  which  he  can  soon  persuade  himself  that  he  did  really 
exercise  •;  besides  which,  an  extra  wife  has  its  advantages  ;\n 
the  way  of  procuring  food  and  saving  him  trouble,  while,  if 
his  other  women  object,  the  matter  is  one  which  does  not 
hurt  him,  for  it  can  easily  be  settled  once  and  for  all  by  a 
stand-up  fight  between  the  women  and  the  rout  of  the  loser." 

Quaintly  Australian  are  the  following  details  of  Kurnai 
courtship  given  by  Howitt : 

"  Sometimes  it  might  happen  that  the  young  men  were 
backward.  Perhaps  there  might  be  several  young  girls  who 
ought  to  be  married,  and  the  women  had  then  to  take  the 
matter  in  hand  when  some  eligible  young  men  were  at  camp. 
They  consulted,  and  some  went  out  in  the  forest  and  with 
sticks  killed  some  of  the  little  birds,  the  yeerung.  These 
they  brought  back  to  the  camp  and  casually  showed  them  to 
some  of  the  men  ;  then  there  was  an  uproar.  The  men  were 

1  Surgeon-General  Roth  of  Queensland  does  not  indulge  m  any  illusions  re- 
garding love  in  Australia.  He  uses  quotation  marks  when  he  speaks  of  a  man 
being  in  "love"  (180).  and  in  another  place  he  speaks  of  th°  native  woman 
"whose  love,  such  as  it  is."  etc.  He  evidently  realizes  that  Australian  lovers 
are  only  "  lewd  fellows  of  the  baser  sort." 


474  ABORIGINAL   AUSTRALIAN   LOVE 

very  angry.  The  yeerungs,  their  brothers,  had  been  killed  ! 
The  young  men  got  sticks  ;  the  girls  took  sticks  also,  and  they 
attacked  each  other.  Heavy  blows  were  struck,  heads  were 
broken,  and  blood  flowed,  but  no  one  stopped  them. 

"  Perhaps  this  fight  might  last  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  then 
they  separated.  Some  even  might  be  left  on  the  ground  in- 
sensible. Even  the  men  and  women  who  were  married  joined 
in  the  free  fight.  The  next  day  the  young  men,  the  brewit, 
went,  and  in  their  turn  killed  some  of  the  women's  '  sisters/ 
the  birds  djeetgun,  and  the  consequence  was  that  on  the 
following  day  there  was  a  worse  fight  than  before.  It  was 
perhaps  a  week  or  two  before  the  wounds  and  bruises  were 
healed.  By  and  by,  some  day  one  of  the  eligible  young  men 
met  one  of  the  marriageable  young  women  ;  he  looked  at  her, 
and  said  '  Djeetgun  ! '  She  said  '  Yeerung  !  What  does  the 
yeerung  eat  ? '  The  reply  was,  '  He  eats  so-and-so,'  mention- 
ing kangaroo,  opossum,  or  emu,  or  some  other  game.  Then 
they  laughed,  and  she  ran  off  with  him  without  telling 
anyone." 

LOVE-LETTERS 

Apart  from  magic  and  birds  Australian  lovers  appear  not 
to  have  been  without  means  of  communicating  with  one  an- 
other. Howitt  says  that  if  a  Kurnai  girl  took  a  fancy  to  a 
man  she  might  send  him  a  secret  message  asking,  "  Will  you 
find  me  some  food  ?  "  And  this  was  understood  to  be  a  pro- 
posal— a  rather  unsentimental  and  utilitarian  proposal,  it  must 
be  confessed.  According  to  one  of  the  correspondents  of 
Curr  (III.,  176)  the  natives  along  the  Mary  River  even  made 
use  of  a  kind  of  love-letters  which,  he  says,  "  were  peculiar/' 

"  When  the  writer  was  once  travelling  with  a  black  boy 
the  latter  produced  from  the  lining  of  his  hat  a  bit  of  twig 
about  an  inch  long  and  having  three  notches  cut  on  it.  The 
black  boy  explained  that  he  was  a  dhomJca  (messenger),  that 
the  central  notch  represented  himself,  and  the  other  notches, 
one  the  youth  sending  the  message,  the  other  the  girl  for 
whom  it  was  intended.  It  meant,  in  the  words  of  Dickens, 
'  Barkis  is  willinV  The  dliomka  sewed  up  the  love-symbol  in 
the  lining  of  his  hat,  carried  it  for  months  without  divulging 
his  secret  to  his  sable  friends,  and  finally  delivered  it  safely. 
This  practice  appeared  to  be  well-known,  and  was  probably 


LOVE-LETTERS  475 

Such  a  "  love-letter,"  consisting  of  three  notches  cut  in  a 
twig,  symbolically  sums  up  this  whole  chapter.  The  differ- 
ence between  this  bushman's  twig  and  the  love-letter  of  a 
civilized  modern. suitor  is  no  greater  than  the  difference  be- 
tween aboriginal  Australian  "love"  and  genuine  romantic 
love. 


ISLAND  LOVE   ON  THE  PACIFIC 

BETWEEN  the  northern  extremity  of  Australia  and  the 
southern  extremity  of  New  Guinea,  about  ninety  miles  wide, 
lies  Torres  Strait,  discovered  by  a  Spaniard  in  1606,  and  not 
visited  again  by  whites  till  Captain  Cook  sailed  through  in 
1770.  This  strait  has  been  called  a  "  labyrinth  of  islands, 
rocks,  and  coral  reefs/'  so  complicated  and  dangerous  that 
Torres,  the  original  discoverer,  required  two  months  to  get 
through. 

WHERE   WOMEN"    PROPOSE 

The  larger  islands  in  this  strait  are  of  special  interest  to  stu- 
dents of  the  phenomena  of  love  and  marriage,  for  on  them  it  is 
not  only  permissible  but  obligatory  for  women  to  propose  to  the 
men.  Needless  to  say  that  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands, 
though  so  near  Queensland,  are  not  Australians.  They  are 
Melanesians,  but  their  customs  are  insular  and  unique.  Curr 
(I.,  279)  says  of  them  that  they  are  "  with  one  exception,  of 
the  Papuan  type,  frizzle-haired  people  who  cultivate  the 
soil,  use  the  bow  and  arrow  and  not  the  spear,  and,  un-Austra- 
lian-like,  treat  their  women  with  some  consideration." 

Luckily  the  customs  of  these  islanders  have  been  carefully 
and  intelligently  studied  by  Professor  A.  C.  Haddon,  who 
published  an  entertaining  account  of  them  in  a  periodical  to 
which  one  usually  looks  for  instruction  rather  than  amuse- 
ment.1 Professor  Haddon  combines  the  two.  On  the  island 
of  Tud,  he  tells  us,  when  boys  undergo  the  ordeal  of  initia- 
tion into  manhood,  one  of  the  lessons  taught  them  is  :  "  You 
no  like  girl  first ;  if  you  do,  girl  laugh  and  call  you  woman." 
When  a  girl  likes  a  man,  she  tells  his  sister  and  gives  her  a 

»  Journal  of  the  Anthrop.  Tnst.,  1889. 
476 


WHERE   WOMEN   PROPOSE  477 

ring  of  string.  On  the  first  suitable  opportunity  the  sister 
says  to  her  brother  :  "  Brother,  I  have  some  good  news  for 
you.  A  woman  loves  you."  He  asks  who  it  is,  and,  if  will- 
ing to  go  on  with  the  affair,  tells  his  sister  to  ask  the  girl  to 
keep  an  appointment  with  him  in  some  spot  in  the  bush. 
On  receipt  of  the  message  the  enamoured  girl  informs  her  par- 
ents that  she  is  going  into  the  bush  to  get  some  wood,  or 
food,  or  some  such  excuse.  At  the  appointed  time  the  man 
meets  her  ;  and  they  sit  down  and  yarn,  without  any  fond- 
ling." The  ensuing  dialogue  is  given  by  Haddon  in  the  actual 
words  which  Maino,  chief  of  Tud,  used  : 

"  Opening  the  conversation,  the  man  says,  '  You  like  me 
proper  ? ' 

"  '  Yes,'  she  replies,  *  I  like  you  proper  with  my  heart  in- 
side. Eye  along  my  heart  see  you — you  my  man/ 

"  Unwilling  to  rashly  give  himself  away,  he  asks,  ( How  you 
like  me  ?  ' 

"  '  I  like  your  leg — you  got  fine  body — your  skin  good — I 
like  you  altogether/  replies  the  girl. 

"  After  matters  have  proceeded  satisfactorily  the  girl,  anx- 
ious to  clench  the  matter,  asks  when  they  are  to  be  married. 
The  man  says,  '  To-morrow,  if  you  like/ 

"  Then  they  go  home  and  inform  their  relatives.  There  is 
a  mock  fight  and  everything  is  settled." 

On  the  island  of  Mabuiag,  after  a  girl  has  sent  an  interme- 
diary to  bring  a  string  to  the  man  she  covets,  she  follows  this 
up  by  sending  him  food,  again  and  again.  But  he  "lies 
low  "  a  month  or  two  before  he  ventures  to  eat  any  of  this 
food,  because  he  has  been  warned  by  his  mother  that  if  he 
takes  it  he  will  "  get  an  eruption  all  over  his  face."  Finally, 
he  concludes  she  means  business,  so  he  consults  the  big  men 
of  the  village  and  marries  her. 

If  a  man  danced  well,  he  found  favor  in  the  sight  of  these 
island  damsels.  His  being  married  did  not  prevent  a  girl 
from  proposing.  Of  course  she  took  good  care  not  to  make  the 
advances  through  one  of  the  other  wives — that  might  have 
caused  trouble  ! — but  in  the  usual  way.  On  this  island  the 
men  never  made  the  first  advances  toward  matrimony.  Had- 
don tells  a  story  of  a  native  girl  who  wanted  to  marry  a  Loy- 


478  ISLAND   LOVE   ON    THE    PACIFIC 

alty  Islander,  a  cook,  who  was  loafing  on  the  mission  premises. 
He  did  not  encourage  her  advances,  but  finally  agreed  to  meet 
her  in  the  bush,  where,  according  to  his  version  of  the  story, 
he  finally  refused  her.  She,  however,  accused  him  of  trying 
to  "  steal "  her.  This  led  to  a  big  palaver  before  the  chief,  at 
which  the  verdict  was  that  the  cook  was  innocent  and  that  the 
girl  had  trumped  up  the  charge  in  order  to  force  the  marriage. 

If  a  man  and  a  girl  began  to  keep  company,  he  was  branded 
on  the  back  with  a  charcoal,  while  her  mark  was  cut  into  the 
skin  (because  "  she  asked  the  man  ").  It  was  expected  they 
would  marry,  but  if  they  did  not  nothing  could  be  done.  If 
it  was  the  man  who  was  unwilling,  the  girl's  father  told  the 
other  men  of  the  place,  and  they  gave  him  a  sound  thrashing. 
Refusing  a  girl  was  thus  a  serious  matter  on  these  islands  ! 

The  missionaries,  Haddon  was  informed, 

"  discountenance  the  native  custom  of  the  women  proposing 
to  the  men,  although  there  is  not  the  least  objection  to  it 
from  a  moral  or  social  point  of  view  ;  quite  the  reverse.  So 
the  white  man's  fashion  is  being  introduced.  As  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  present  mixed  condition  of  affairs,  I  found  that  a 
girl  who  wants  a  certain  man  writes  him  a  letter,  often  on  a 
slate,  and  he  replies  in  a  similar  manner/' 

On  the  island  of  Tud  it  often  happened  that  the  girl  who 
was  first  enamoured  of  a  youth  at  his  initiation,  and  who  first 
asked  him  in  marriage,  was  one  who  "  like  too  many  men." 
The  lad,  being  on  his  guard,  might  get  rid  of  her  attentions 
by  playing  a  trick  on  her,  making  a  bogus  appointment  with 
her  in  the  bush,  and  then  informing  the  elder  men,  who 
would  appear  in  his  place  at  the  trysting-place,  to  the  girl's 
mortification. 

Various  details  given  in  the  chapter  on  Australia  indicated 
that  if  the  women  on  that  big  island  did  not  propose,  as  a 
rule,  it  was  not  from  coyness  but  because  the  selfishness  of 
the  men  and  their  arrangements  made  it  impossible  in  most 
cases.  On  these  neighboring  islands  the  women  could  pro- 
pose 5  yet  the  cause  of  love,  of  course,  did  not  gain  anything 
from  such  an  arrangement,  which  could  serve  only  to  stimu- 
late licentiousness. 


WHERE   WOMEN   PROPOSE  479 

Haddon  gathered  the  impression  that  "  chastity  before 
marriage  was  unknown,  free  intercourse  not  being  considered 
wrong  ;  it  was  merely  '  fashion  along  we  folk. ' *'  Their  excuse 
was  the  same  as  Adam's  :  "  Woman,  he  steal ;  man,  how  can 
he  help  it?"1 

Nocturnal  courtship  was  in  vogue  :  "  Decorum  was  ob- 
served. Thus  I  was  told  in  Tud  a  girl,  before  going  to  sleep, 
would  tie  a  string  round  her  foot  and  pass  it  under  the 
thatched  wall  of  the  house.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  her 
lover  would  come,  pull  the  string,  and  so  awaken  the  girl, 
who  would  then  join  him.  As  the  chief  of  Mabuiag  said, 
'  What  can  the  father  do  ;  if  she  wants  the  man  how  can  he 
stop  her  ? ' '  On  Muralug  Island  the  custom  is  somewhat 
different.  There,  after  the  girl  has  sent  her  grass-ring  to  the 
man  she  wants, 

"if  he  is  willing  to  proceed  in  the  matter,  he  goes  to  the 
rendezvous  in  the  bush  and,  not  unnaturally,  takes  every  ad- 
vantage of  the  situation.  Every  night  afterwards  he  goes  to 
the  girl's  house  and  steals  away  before  daybreak.  At  length 
someone  informs  the  girl's  father  that  a  man  is  sleeping  with 
his  daughter.  The  father  communicates  with  the  girl,  and 
she  tells  her  lover  that  her  father  wants  to  see  him — '  To  see 
what  sort  of  man  he  is  ? '  The  father  then  says,  '  You  like  my 
daughter,  she  like  you,  you  may  have  her.'  The  details  are 
then  arranged." 

Sometimes,  if  a  girl  was  too  free  with  her  favors  to  the  men, 
the  other  women  cut  a  mark  down  her  back,  to  make  her  feel 
ashamed.  Yet  she  had  no  difficulty  on  this  account  in  sub- 
sequently finding  a  husband. 

Besides  the  existence  of  "  free  love,"  there  are  other  cus- 
toms arguing  the  absence  of  sentiment  in  these  insular  affairs 

1  Macgillivray  says  (II.,  8)  that  the  females  of  the  Torres  Islands  are  in  most 
cases  betrothed  in  infancy.  "  When  the  man  thinks  proper  he  takes  his  wife 
to  live  with  him  without  any  further  ceremony,  but  before  this  she  has  prob- 
ably had  promiscuous  intercourse  with  the  young  men,  such,  if  conducted  with 
a  moderate  degree  of  secrecy,  not  being  considered  as  an  offence.  .  .  .  Oc- 
casionally there  are  instances  of  strong  mutual  attachment  and  courtship,  when, 
if  the  damsel  is  not  betrothed,  a  small  present  made  to  the  father  is  sufficient 
to  procure  his  consent ;  at  the  Prince  of  Wales  Islands  a  knife  or  a  glass  is  con- 
sidered as  a  sufficient  price  for  the  hand  of  a  'fair  lady,'  and  are  the  articles 
mostly  used  for  that  purpose."  I  cite  this  passage  chiefly  because  it  is  another 
one  of  tnose  to  which  Gerland  refers  as  evidence  of  genuine  romantic  love ! 


480  ISLAND   LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 

of  the  heart.  Infanticide  was  frequently  resorted  to,  the 
babes  being  buried  alive  in  the  sand,  for  no  other  reason  than 
to  save  the  trouble  of  taking  care  of  them.  After  marriage, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  girl  did  the  proposing,  she  be- 
comes the  man's  property  ;  so  much  so  that  if  she  should  of- 
fend him,  he  may  kill  her  and  no  harm  will  come  to  him. 
If  her  sister  comes  to  remonstrate,  he  can  kill  her  too,  and  if 
he  has  two  wives  and  they  quarrel,  he  can  kill  both.  In  that 
love-scene  reported  by  Maino,  the  chief  of  Tud,  the  girl  gives 
us  her  "  sentimental  "  reasons  why  she  loves  him  :  because 
he  has  a  fine  leg  and  body,  and  a  good  skin.  The  "ro- 
mance "  of  the  situation  is  further  aggravated  when  we  read 
that,  as  in  Australia,  swapping  sisters  is  the  usual  way  of  get- 
ting a  wife,  and  that  if  a  man  has  no  sister  to  exchange  he 
must  pay  for  his  wife  with  a  canoe,  a  knife,  or  a  glass  bottle. 
Chief  Maino  himself  told  Haddon  that  he  gave  for  his  wife 
seven  pieces  of  calico,  one  dozen  shirts,  one  dozen  singlets, 
one  dozen  trousers,  one  dozen  handkerchiefs,  two  dozen  toma- 
hawks, besides  tobacco,  fish-lines  and  hooks  and  pearl  shells. 
He  finished  his  enumeration  by  exclaiming  "  By  golly,  he 
too  dear !  " 

How  did  these  islanders  ever  come  to  indulge  in  the 
custom,  so  inconsistent  with  their  general  attitude  toward 
women,  of  allowing  them  to  propose  ?  The  only  hint  at  an 
explanation  I  have  been  able  to  find  is  contained  in  the  fol- 
lowing citation  from  Haddon  : 

"  If  an  unmarried  woman  desired  a  man  she  accosted  him, 
but  the  man  did  not  ask  the  woman  (at  least,  so  I  was  in- 
formed), for  if  she  refused  him  he  would  feel  ashamed,  and 
maybe  brain  her  with  a  stone  club,  and  so  '  he  would  kill  her 
for  nothing. ' 3 

BOR^EAtf    CAGED    GIRLS 

The  islands  of  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  adjacent  waters  are  al- 
most innumerable.  To  give  an  account  of  the  love-affairs 
customary  on  all  of  them  would  require  a  large  volume  by 
itself.  In  the  present  work  it  is  not  possible  to  do  more  than 
select  a  few  of  the  islands,  as  samples,  preference  being  given 


CHARMS   OF   DYAK   WOMEN  481 

to  those  that  show  at  least  some  traces  of  feelings  rising 
above  mere  sensualism.  One  of  the  largest  and  best  known 
of  these  islands  is  Borneo,  and  of  its  inhabitants  the  Dyaks 
are  of  special  interest  from  our  point  of  view.  Their  customs 
have  been  observed  and  described  by  St.  John,  Low,  Bock, 
H.  Ling  Roth  and  others.1 

In  some  parts  of  Dutch  Borneo  the  cruel  custom  prevails 
of  locking  up  a  girl  when  she  is  eight  to  ten  years  old  in  a 
small,  dark  apartment  of  the  house,  which  she  is  not  allowed 
to  leave  for  about  seven  years.  She  spends  her  time  making 
mats  and  doing  other  handiwork,  but  is  not  allowed  to  see 
anyone — not  even  of  her  own  family — except  a  female  slave. 
When  she  is  free  from  her  prison  she  appears  bleached  a  light 
yellow,  as  though  made  out  of  wax,  and  totters  along  on  small, 
thin  feet — which  the  natives  consider  especially  attractive. 


CHARMS   OF   DYAK   WOMEN 

Dyak  girls  are  not  subjected  to  any  such  restraints,  and  in 
some  respects  they  enjoy  more  liberty  than  is  good  for  them. 
As  usual  among  the  lower  races,  they  have  to  do  most  of  the 
hard  work.  "  It  is  a  sad  sight,"  says  Low  (75),  "to  see  the 
Dyak  girls,  some  but  nine  or  ten  years  of  age,  carrying  water 
up  the  mount  in  bamboos,  their  bodies  bent  nearly  double, 
and  groaning  under  the  weight  of  their  burden."  Lieutenant 
Marryat  found  that  the  mountain  Dyak  girls,  if  not  beauti- 
ful, had  some  beautiful  points — good  eyes,  teeth,  and  hair, 
besides  good  manners,  and  they  "  knew  how  to  make  use  of 
their  eyes/'  Denison  (cited  by  Roth,  I.,  46)  remarks  that 
"  Some  of  the  girls  showed  signs  of  good  looks,  but  hard 
work,  poor  feeding,  and  intermarriage  and  early  marriage 
soon  told  their  tale,  and  rapidly  converted  them  into  ugly, 
dirty,  diseased  old  hags,  and  this  at  an  age  when  they  are 
barely  more  than  young  women."  They  marry  sometimes  as 
early  as  the  age  of  thirteen,  and  in  general  they  are  inferior 

1 1  am  indebted  for  many  of  the  following  facts  to  H.  Ling  Roth's  splendid 
compilation  and  monograph  entitled  The  Natives  of  Sarawak  and  British 
North  Borneo.  London,  1896. 


482  ISLAND   LOVE   ON  THE   PACIFIC 

in  looks  to  the  men.  Marryat  thought  he  saw  "  something 
wicked  in  their  dark  furtive  glances,"  while  Earl  found  the 
faces  of  Dyak  women  generally  extremely  interesting,  largely 
on  account  of  "  the  soft  expression  given  by  their  long  eye- 
lashes, and  by  the  habit  of  keeping  the  eyes  half  closed." 
"  Their  general  conversation  is  not  wanting  in  wit,"  says 
Brooke  (I.,  70),  "  and  considerable  acuteness  of  perception  is 
evinced,  but  often  accompanied  by  improper  and  indecent 
language,  of  which  they  are  unaware  when  giving  utterance 
to  it.  Their  acts,  however,  fortunately  evince  more  regard 
for  modesty  than  their  words."  Grant,  in  describing  his  tour 
among  the  Land  Dyaks,  remarks  (97) :  "  It  has  been  men- 
tioned once  or  twice  that  we  found  the  women  bathing  at  the 
village  well.  Although,  generally  speaking,  no  lack  of  proper 
modesty  is  shown,  certainly  rather  an  Adam  and  Eve  like  idea 
of  the  same  is  displayed  on  such  occasions  by  these  simple 
people." 

DYAK  MOKALS 

Concerning  the  sexual  morality  of  the  Dyaks,  opinions  of 
observers  differ  somewhat.  St.  John  (I.,  52)  observes  that 
"  the  Sea  Dyak  women  are  modest  and  yet  unchaste,  love 
warmly  and  yet  divorce  easily,  but  are  generally  faithful  to 
their  husbands  when  married."  It  is  agreed  that  the  morality 
of  the  Land  Dyaks  is  superior  to  that  of  the  Sea  Dyaks ;  yet 
with  them,  "  as  among  the  Sea  Dyaks,  the  young  people  have 
almost  unrestrained  intercourse  ;  but,  if  a  girl  prove  with 
child  a  marriage  immediately  takes  place,  the  bridegroom 
making  the  richest  presents  he  can  to  her  relatives"  (I.,  113). 
"  There  is  no  strict  law,"  says  Mundy  (II.,  2), 

"  to  bind  the  conduct  of  young  married  people  of  either  sex. 
and  parents  are  more  or  less  indifferent  on  those  points,  ac- 
cording to  their  individual  ideas  of  right  and  wrong.  It  is 
supposed  that  every  young  Dyak  woman  will  eventually  suit 
herself  with  a  husband,  and  it  is  considered  no  disgrace  to  be 
on  terms  of  intimacy  with  the  youth  of  her  fancy  till  she  has  the 
opportunity  of  selecting  a  suitable  helpmate  ;  and  as  the  un- 
married ladies  attach  much  importance  to  bravery,  they  are 
always  desirous  of  securing  the  affections  of  a  renoAvned  war- 


NOCTURNAL   COURTSHIP  483 

rior.  Lax,  however,  as  this  code  may  appear  before  marriage, 
it  would  seem  to  be  sufficiently  stringent  after  the  matri- 
monial. One  wife  only  is  allowed,  and  infidelity  is  punished 
by  fine  on  both  sides — inconstancy  on  the  part  of  the  hus- 
band being  esteemed  equally  as  bad  as  in  the  female.  The 
breach  of  the  marriage  vows,  however,  appears  to  be  infre- 
quent, though  they  allow  that,  during  the  time  of  war,  more 
license  is  given/' 

NOCTURNAL   COURTSHIP 

Brooke  Low  relates  that  the  Sea  Dyak  girls  receive  their 
male  visitors  at  night. 

"  They  sleep  apart  from  their  parents,  sometimes  in  the 
same  room,  but  more  often  in  the  loft.  The  young  men  are 
not  invited  to  sleep  with  them  unless  they  are  old  friends, 
but  they  may  sit  with  them  and  chat,  and  if  they  get  to  be 
fond  of  each  other  after  a  short  acquaintance,  and  wish  to 
make  a  match  of  it,  they  are  united  in  marriage,  if  the  par- 
ents on  either  side  have  no  objections  to  offer.  It  is  in  fact 
the  only  way  open  to  the  man  and  woman  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  each  other,  as  privacy  during  the  daytime  is 
out  of  the  question  in  a  Dyak  village/' 

The  same  method  of  courtship  prevails  among  the  Land 
Dyaks.  Some  queer  details  are  given  by  St.  John,  Crossland 
and  Leggatt  (Roth,  110).  About  nine  or  ten  o'clock  at  night 
the  lover  goes  on  tiptoe  to  the  mosquito  curtains  of  his  be- 
loved, gently  awakens  her  and  offers  her  some  prepared  betel- 
nut.  If  she  accepts  it,  he  is  happy,  for  it  means  that  his 
suit  is  prospering,  but  if  she  refuses  it  and  says  "  Be  good 
enough  to  blow  up  the  fire/'  it  means  that  he  is  dismissed. 
Sometimes  their  discourse  is  carried  on  through  the  medium 
of  a  sort  of  Jew's-harp,  one  handing  it  to  the  other,  asking 
questions  and  returning  answers.  The  lover  remains  until 
daybreak.  After  the  consent  of  the  girl  and  her  parents 
has  been  obtained,  one  more  ordeal  remains ;  the  bridal 
couple  have  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  the  mischievous  village 
boys,  who  stand  ready  with  sooted  hands  to  begrime  their 
faces  and  bodies ;  and  generally  they  succeed  so  well  that 
bride  and  groom  present  the  appearance  of  negroes. 

Elopements  also  occur  in  cases  where  parental  consent  is 


484  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE    PACIFIC 

withheld.     Brooke  Low  thus  describes  an  old  custom  which 
permits  a  man  to  carry  off  a  girl  : 

"  She  will  meet  him  by  arrangement  at  the  water-side  and 
step  into  his  boat  with  a  paddle  in  her  hand,  and  both  will 
pull  away  as  fast  as  they  can.  If  pursued  he  will  stop  every 
now  and  then  to  deposit  some  article  of  value  on  the  bank, 
such  as  a  gun,  a  jar,  or  a  tavor  for  the  acceptance  of  her  fam- 
ily, and  when  he  has  exhausted  his  resources  he  will  leave  his 
own  sword.  When  the  pursuers  observe  this  they  will  cease 
to  follow,  knowing  he  is  cleared  out.  As  soon  as  he  reaches 
his  own  village  he  tidies  up  the  house  and  spreads  the  mats, 
and  when  his  pursuers  arrive  he  gives  them  food  to  eat  and 
toddy  to  drink,  and  sends  them  home  satisfied.  In  the 
meanwhile  he  is  left  in  possession  of  his  wife/' 


HEAD   HUNTERS     A-WOOING 

In  one  of  the  introductory  chapters  of  this  volume  a  brief 
account  was  given  of  the  Dyak  head-hunters.  Reference  was 
made  to  the  fact  that  the  more  heads  a  man  has  cut  off,  the 
more  he  is  respected.  He  cannot  marry  until  he  has  killed 
a  man,  woman,  or  child,  and  brought  home  the  head  as  a 
trophy,  and  cases  are  known  of  men  having  to  wait  two 
years  before  they  could  procure  the  skull  necessary  to  soften 
the  heart  of  the  gentle  beloved.  "From  all  accounts,"  says 
Eotll  (II.,  163), 

"  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  one  of  the  chief  incentives 
to  getting  heads  is  the  desire  to  please  the  women. 
Mrs.  McDougall  relates  an  old  Sakaran  legend  which  says 
that  the  daughter  of  their  great  ancestor,  who  resides  in 
heaven  near  the  great  Evening  Star,  refused  to  marry  until 
her  betrothed  brought  her  a  present  worth  her  acceptance. 
The  man  went  into  the  jungle  and  killed  a  deer,  which  lie 
presented  to  her  ;  but  the  fair  lady  turned  away  in  disdain. 
He  went  again  and  returned  with  a  mias,  the  great  monkey 
[sic]  who  haunts  the  forest .;  but  this  present  was  not  more 
to  her  taste.  Then,  in  a  fit  of  despair,  the  lover  went  abroad, 
and  killed  the  first  man  that  he  met,  and  throwing  his  vic- 
tim's head  at  the  maiden's  feet,  he  exclaimed  at  the  cruelty 
she  had  made  him  guilty  of  ;  but  to  his  surprise,  she  smiled, 
and  said  that  now  he  had  discovered  the  only  gift  worthy  of 
herself/' 


HEAD    HUNTERS   A-WOOING  485 

Roth  cites  a  correspondent  who  says  :  "  At  this  moment 
there  are  two  Dyaks  in  the  Kuching  jail  who  acknowledge 
that  they  took  the  heads  of  two  innocent  Chinese  with  no 
other  object  in  view  when  doing  so  than  to  secure  the  pseudo 
affections  of  women,  who  refused  to  marry  them  until  they 
had  thus  proved  themselves  to  be  men/'  Here  is  what  a 
sweet  Dyak  maiden  said  to  a  young  man  who  asked  for  her 
hand  and  heart  :  "  Why  don't  you  go  to  the  Sari  bus  Fort 
and  there  take  the  head  of  Bakir  (the  Dyak  chief),  or  even 
that  of  Tuan  Hassan  (Mr.  Watson),  and  then  I  will  deign  to 
think  of  your  desires  with  some  degree  of  interest."  Says 
Captain  Mundy  (II., 


"  No  aristocratic  youth  dare  venture  to  pay  his  addresses 
to  a  Dyak  demoiselle  unless  he  throws  at  the  blushing  maid- 
en's feet  a  netful  of  skulls  !  In  some  districts  it  is  customary 
for  the  young  lady  to  desire  her  lover  to  cut  a  thick  bamboo 
from  the  neighboring  jungle,  and  when  in  possession  of  this 
instrument,  she  carefully  arranges  the  cadeau  d9  amour  on  the 
floor,  and  by  repeated  blows  beats  the  heads  into  fragments, 
which,  when  thus  pounded,  are  scraped  up  and  cast  into  the 
river  ;  at  the  same  time  she  throws  herself  into  the  arms  of 
the  enraptured  youth,  and  so  commences  the  honeymoon." 

Another  account  of  Dyak  courtship  (Roth,  II.,  166)  repre- 
sents a  young  warrior  returning  from  a  head-hunting  expedi- 
tion and,  on  meeting  his  beloved,  holding  in  each  hand  one 
of  the  captured  heads  by  the  hair.  She  takes  one  of  the 
heads,  whereupon  they  dance  round  each  other  with  the  most 
extravagant  gestures,  amidst  the  applause  of  the  Rajah  and 
his  people.  The  next  step  is  a  feast,  at  which  the  young 
couple  eat  together.  When  this  is  over,  they  have  to  take 
off  whatever  clothes  they  have  on  and  sit  naked  on  the  ground 
while  some  of  the  old  women  throw  over  them  handfuls  of 
paddy  and  repeat  a  prayer  that  they  may  prove  as  fruitful  as 
that  grain.  "The  warrior  can  take  away  any  inferior  man's 
wife  at  pleasure,  and  is  thanked  for  so  doing.  A  chief  who 
has  twenty  heads  in  his  possession  will  do  the  same  with  an- 
other who  may  have  only  ten,  and  upwards  to  the  Rajah's 
family,  who  can  take  any  woman  at  pleasure." 


486  ISLAND   LOVE   ON  THE   PACIFIC 


FICKLE   AND   SHALLOW   PASSION 

Though  the  Dyaks  may  be  somewhat  less  coarse  than  those 
Australians  who  make  a  captured  woman  marry  the  man  who 
killed  her  husband,  an  almost  equal  callousness  of  feeling  is 
revealed  by  J.  Dalton's  statement  that  the  women  taken  on 
the  head-hunting  expedition  "  soon  became  attached  to  the 
conquerors" — resembling,  in  this  respect,  the  Australian 
woman  who,  of  her  own  accord,  deserts  to  an  enemy  who  has 
vanquished  her  husband.  Cases  of  frantic  amorous  infatua- 
tion occur,  as  a  matter  of  course.  Brooke  (II.,  106)  relates 
the  story  of  a  girl  of  seventeen  who,  for  the  sake  of  an  ugly, 
deformed,  and  degraded  workman,  left  her  home,  dressed  as 
a  man,  and  in  a  small  broken  canoe  made  a  trip  of  eighty 
miles  to  join  her  lover.  In  olden  times  death  would  have 
been  the  penalty  for  such  an  act;  but  she,  being  a  "New 
Woman  "  in  her  tribe,  exclaimed,  "  If  I  fell  in  love  with  a 
wild  beast,  no  one  should  prevent  me  marrying  it."  In  this 
Eastern  clime,  Brooke  declares,  "  love  is  like  the  sun's  rays  in 
warmth."  He  might  have  added  that  it  is  as  fickle  and  tran- 
sient as  the  sun's  warmth  ;  every  passing  cloud  chills  it.  The 
shallow  nature  of  Dyak.  attachment  is  indicated  by  their 
ephemeral  unions  and  universal  addiction  to  divorce.  "  Among 
the  Upper  Sarawak  Dyaks  divorce  is  very  frequent,  owing  to 
the  great  extent  of  adultery,"  says  Haughton  (Roth,  I.,  126) ; 
and  St.  John  remarks  : 

' '  One  can  scarcely  meet  with  a  middle-aged  Dayak  who  has 
not  had  two,  and  often  three  or  more  wives.  I  have  heard  of 
a  girl  of  seventeen  or  eighteen  years  who  had  already  had 
three  husbands.  Repudiation,  which  is  generally  done  by  the 
man  or  woman  running  away  to  the  house  of  a  near  relation, 
takes  place  for  the  slightest  cause — personal  dislike  or  disap- 
pointments, a  sudden  quarrel,  bad  dreams,  discontent  with 
their  partners'  powers  of  labor  or  their  industry,  or,  in  fact, 
any  excuse  which  will  help  to  give  force  to  the  expression, 
'  I  do  not  want  to  live  with  him,  or  her,  any  longer." 

"  Many  men  and  women  have  married  seven  or  eight  times 
before  they  find  the  partner  with  whom  they  desire  to  spend 
the  rest  of  their  lives." 


DYAK   LOVE   SONGS  487 

"  When  a  couple  are  newly-married,  if  a  deer  or  a  gazelle, 
or  a  moose-deer  utters  a  cry  at  night  near  the  house  in  which 
the  pair  are  living,  it  is  an  omen  of  ill — they  must  separate, 
or  the  death  of  one  would  ensue.  This  might  be  a  great  trial 
to  tin  European  lover ;  the  Dayaks,  however,  take  the  matter 
very  philosophically. 

"  Mr.  Chalmers  mentions  to  me  the  case  of  a  young  Penin- 
jau  man  who  was  divorced  from  his  wife  on  the  third  day 
after  marriage.  The  previous  night  a  deer  had  uttered  its 
warning  cry,  and  separate  they  must.  The  morning  of  the 
divorce  he  chanced  to  go  into  the  '  Head  House,'  and  there 
sat  the  bridegroom  contentedly  at  work. 

"  '  Why  are  you  here  ?  '  he  was  asked,  as  the  '  Head  House ' 
is  frequented  by  bachelors  and  boys  only  ;  *  What  news  of  your 
new  wife  ? ' 

'  *  *  I  have  no  wife,  we  were  separated  this  morning  because 
the  deer  cried  last  night/ 

"  '  Are  you  sorry  ?' 

"  '  Very  sorry/ 

"  '  What  are  you  doing  with  that  brass  wire  ?' 

"  '  Making  perik ' — the  brass  chain-work  which  the  women 
wear  round  their  waists — '  for  a  young  woman  whom  I  want 
to  get  for  my  new  wife/'  (I.,  165-67  ;  55.) 

Such  is  the  love  of  Dyaks.  Marriage  among  them,  says 
the  same  keen  observer,  "  is  a  business  of  partnership  for  the 
purpose  of  having  children,  dividing  labor,  and,  by  means  of 
their  offspring,  providing  for  their  old  age  ; "  and  Brooke  Low 
remarks  that  "  intercourse  before  marriage  is  strictly  to  as- 
certain that  the  marriage  will  be  fruitful,  as  the  Dyaks  want 
children."  In  other  words,  apart  from  sensual  purposes,  the 
women  are  not  desired  and  cherished  for  their  own  sakes,  but 
only  for  utilitarian  reasons,  as  a  means  to  an  end.  Whence 
we  conclude  that,  high  as  the  Dyaks  stand  above  Australians 
and  many  Africans,  they  are  still  far  from  the  goal  of  genuine 
affection.  Their  feelings  are  only  skin  deep. 


DYAK   LOVE-SOHGS 

Dyaks  are  not  without  their  love-songs.  "  I  am  the  tender 
shoot  of  the  drooping  libau  with  its  fragrant  scent."  "I  am 
the  comb  of  the  champion  fighting-cock  that  never  runs 


488  ISLAND   LOVE    ON   THE   PACIFIC 

away."  "  lam  the  hawk  flying  down  the  Kanyau  River,  com- 
ing after  the  fine  feathered  fowl."  "  I  am  the  crocodile  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Lingga,  coming  repeatedly  for  the  striped 
flower  of  the  rose-apple."  Roth  (I.,  119-21)  cites  forty-five 
of  these  verses,  mostly  expressive  of  such  selfish  boasting  and 
vanity.  Not  one  of  them  expresses  a  feeling  of  tenderness  or 
admiration  of  a  beloved  person,  not  to  speak  of  altruistic 
feelings. 


THE   GIRL   WITH   THE    CLEAN    FACE 

Is  a  Dyak  capable  of  admiring  personal  beauty  ?  Some  of 
the  girls  have  fine  figures  and  pretty  faces  ;  but  there  is  no 
evidence  that  any  but  the  voluptuous  (non-esthetic)  qualities 
of  the  figure  are  appreciated,  and  as  for  the  faces,  if  the  men 
really  appreciated  beauty  as  we  do,  they  would  first  of  all 
things  insist  that  the  girls  must  keep  their  faces  clean.  An 
amusing  experiment  made  by  St.  John  with  some  Ida'an  girls 
(I.,  339)  is  suggestive  from  this  point  of  view  : 

"  We  selected  one  who  had  the  dirtiest  face — and  it  was 
difficult  to  select  where  all  were  dirty — and  asked  her  to 
glance  at  herself  in  a  looking-glass.  She  did  so,  and  passed 
it  round  to  the  others  ;  we  then  asked  which  they  thought 
looked  best,  cleanliness  or  dirt  :  this  was  received  with  a  uni- 
versal giggle. 

"We  had  brought  with  us  several  dozen  cheap  looking- 
glasses,  so  we  told  Iseiom,  the  daughter  of  Li  Moung,  our 
host,  that  if  she  would  go  and  wash  her  face  we  would  give 
her  one.  She  treated  the  offer  with  scorn,  tossed  her  head, 
and  went  into  her  father's  room.  But  about  half  an  hour 
afterwards,  we  saw  her  come  into  the  house  and  try  to  mix 
quietly  with  the  crowd  ;  but  it  was  of  no  use,  i»@r  companions 
soon  noticed  she  had  a  clean  face,  and  pushed  her  to  the  front 
to  be  inspected.  She  blushingly  received  her  looking-glass 
and  ran  away,  amid  the  laughter  of  the  crowd." 

The  example  had  a  great  effect,  however,  and  before  even- 
ing nine  of  the  girls  had  received  looking-glasses.1 

1  The  Ida'an  are  the  aboriginal  population  ;  in  dress,  habitations,  manners, 
and  customs  they  are  essentially  the  same  as  the  Dyaks  in  general. 


FIJIAN   REFINEMENTS  489 


FIJIAN    REFINEMENTS 

In  the  chapter  on  Personal  Beauty  I  endeavored  to  show 
that  if  savages  who  live  near  the  sea  or  river  are  clean,  it  is 
not  owing  to  their  love  of  cleanliness,  but  to  an  accident, 
bathing  being  resorted  to  by  them  as  an  antidote  to  heat,  or 
as  a  sport.  This  applies  particularly  to  the  Melanesian  and 
Polynesian  inhabitants  of  the  South  Sea  Islands,  whose  chief 
pastimes  are  swimming  and  surf  rid'ing.  Thomas  Williams, 
in  his  authoritative  work  on  Fiji  and  the  Fijians,  makes  some 
remarks  which  entirely  bear  out  my  views  :  s '  Too  much  lias 
been  said  about  the  cleanliness  of  the  natives.  The  lower 
classes  are  often  very  dirty.  .  .  .  They  .  .  .  seldom 
hesitate  to  sink  both  cleanliness  and  dignity  in  what  they 
call  comfort"  (117).  We  are  therefore  not  surprised  to  read 
on  another  page  (97)  that  "  of  admiring  emotion,  produced 
by  the  contemplation  of  beauty,  these  people  seem  incapable  ; 
while  they  remain  unmoved  by  the  wondrous  loveliness  with 
which  they  are  everywhere  surrounded.  .  .  .  The  mind 
of  the  Fijian  has  hitherto  seemed  utterly  unconscious  of  any 
inspiration  of  beauty,  and  his  imagination  has  grovelled  in 
the  most  vulgar  earthliness." 

Sentimentalists  have  therefore  erred  in  ascribing  to  the  Fi- 
jian cannibals  cleanliness  as  a  virtue.  They  have  erred  also 
in  regard  to  several  other  alleged  refinements  they  discovered 
among  these  tribes.  One  of  these  is  the  custom  prohibiting 
a  father  from  cohabiting  with  his  wife  until  the  child  is 
weaned.  This  has  been  supposed  to  indicate  a  kind  regard 
for  the  welfare  and  health  of  mother  and  child.  But  when 
we  examine  the  facts  we  find  that  far  from  being  a  proof  of 
superior  morality,  this  custom  reveals  the  immorality  of  the 
husband,  and  makes  an  assassin  of  the  wife.  Read  what 
AVilliams  has  to  say  (154) :  "  Nandi,  one  of  whose  wives  was 
pregnant,  left  her  to  dwell  with  a  second.  The  forsaken  one 
awaited  his  return  some  months,  and  at  last  the  child  dis- 
appeared. This  practice  seemed  to  be  universal  on  Vanua 
Levu — quite  a  matter  of  course — so  that  few  women  could  be 


490  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

found  who  had  not  in  some  way  been  murderers.  The  ex- 
tent of  infanticide  in  some  parts  of  this  island  reaches  nearer 
to  two-thirds  than  half/' 

Williams  further  informs  us  (117)  that  "husbands  are  as 
frequently  away  from  their  wives  as  they  are  with  them,  since 
it  is  thought  not  well  for  a  man  to  sleep  regularly  at  home." 
He  does  not  comment  on  this,  but  Seeman  (191)  and  Wester- 
marck  (151)  interpret  the  custom  as  indicating  Fijian  "  ideas 
of  delicacy  in  married  life,"  which,  after  what  has  just  been 
said,  is  decidedly  amusing.  If  Fijians  really  were  capable  of 
considering  it  indelicate  to  spend  the  night  under  the  same 
roof  with  their  wives,  it  would  indicate  their  indelicacy,  not 
their  delicacy.  The  utterly  unprincipled  men  doubtless  had 
their  reasons  for  preferring  to  stay  away  from  home,  and  prob- 
ably their  great  contempt  for  women  also  had  something  to 
do  with  the  custom. 


HOW  CANNIBALS  TKEAT  WOMEN 

In  Fiji,  says  Crawley  (225),  women  are  kept  away  from 
participation  in  worship.  "  Dogs  are  excluded  from  some 
temples,  women  from  all."  In  many  parts  of  the  group 
woman  is  treated,  according  to  Williams,  "  as  a  beast  of  burden, 
not  exempt  from  any  kind  of  labor,  and  forbidden  to  enter  any 
temple  ;  certain  kinds  of  food  she  may  eat  only  by  sufferance, 
and  that  after  her  husband  has  finished.  In  youth  she  is  the 
victim  of  lust,  and  in  old  age,  of  brutality."  Girls  are  be- 
trothed and  married  as  children  without  consulting  their 
choice.  "  I  have  seen  an  old  man  of  sixty  living  with  two 
wives  both  under  fifteen  years  of  age."  Such  of  the  young 
women  as  are  acquainted  with  foreign  ways  envy  the  favored 
women  ,who  wed  "  the  man  to  whom  their  spirit  flies." 
Women  are  regarded  as  the  property  of  the  men,  and  as  an 
incentive  to  bravery  they  are  "  promised  to  such  as  shall,  by 
their  prowess,  render  themselves  deserving."  They  are  used 
for  .paying  war-debts  and  other  accounts  ;  for  instance,  "  the 
people  submitted  to  their  chiefs  and  capitulated,  offering  two 
women,  a  basket  of  earth,  whales'  teeth,  and  mats,  to  buy 


HOW   CANNIBALS   TREAT   WOMEN  491 

the  reconciliation  of  the  Re  wans."  "  A  chief  of  Nandy,  in 
Viti  Levu,  was  very  desirous  to  have  a  musket  which  an 
American  captain  had  shown  him.  The  price  of  the  coveted 
piece  was  two  hogs.  The  chief  had  only  one  ;  but  he  sent  on 
board  with  it  a  young  woman  as  an  equivalent."  At  wed- 
dings the  prayer  is  that  the  bride  may  "  bring  forth  male  chil- 
dren "  ;  and  when  the  son  is  born,  one  of  the  first  lessons 
taught  him  is  "  to  strike  his  mother,  lest  he  should  grow  up  to 
be  a  coward."  When  a  husband  died,  it  was  the  national 
custom  to  murder  his  wife,  often  his  mother  too,  to  be  his 
companions.  To  kill  a  defenceless  woman  was  an  honorable 
deed.  "  I  once  asked  a  man  why  he  was  called  Koroi.  '  Be- 
cause/ he  replied,  'I,  with  several  other  men,  found  some 
women  and  children  in  a  cave,  drew  them  out  and  clubbed 
them  and  was  then  consecrated."  So  far  have  sympathy 
and  gallantry  progressed  in  Fiji. 

"  Many  examples  might  be  given  of  most  dastardly  cruelty, 
where  women  and  even  unoffending  children  were  abom- 
inably slain."  "  I  have  labored  to  make  the  murderers  of 
females  ashamed  of  themselves  ;  and  have  heard  their  cow- 
ardly cruelty  defended  by  the  assertion  tnat  such  victims  were 
•doubly  good — because  they  ate  well,  and  because  of  the  dis- 
tress it  caused  their  husbands  and  friends."  "  Cannibalism 
does  not  confine  itself  to  one  sex."  "  The  heart,  the  thigh, 
and  the  arm  above  the  elbow,  are  considered  the  greatest 
dainties."  One  of  these  monsters,  whom  Williams  knew, 
sent  his  wife  to  fetch  wood  and  collect  leaves  to  line  the  oven. 
When  she  had  cheerfully  and  unsuspectingly  obeyed  his 
orders,  he  killed  her,  put  her  in  the  oven,  and  ate  her. 
There  had  been  no  quarrel  ;  he  was  simply  hungering  for  a 
dainty  morsel.  Even  after  death  the  women  are  subjected  to 
barbarous  treatment.  "One  of  the  corpses  was  that  of  an  old 
man  of  seventy,  another  of  a  fine  young  woman  of  eighteen. 

.  .  All  were  dragged  about  and  subjected  to  abuse  too 
horrible  and  disgusting  to  be  described." l 

'  The  above  details  are  culled  from  Williams,  pp.  145, 144,  38,  345,  148,  152, 
43,  114,  179,  ISO,  344.  The  editor  declares,  in  a  foot-note  (182),  that  he  has  re- 
pressed or  softened  some  of  the  more  horrible  details  in  Williams' s  account. 


492  ISLAND    LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 


FIJIAN    MODESTY   AND    CHASTITY 

With  these  facts  in  mind  the  reader  is  able  to  appreciate 
the  humor  of  the  suggestion  that  it  is  "  ideas  of  delicacy  " 
that  prevent  Fijian  husbands  from  spending  their  nights  at 
home.  Equally  amusing  is  the  blunder  of  Wilkes,  who  tells 
us  (III.,  356)  that  "  though  almost  naked,  these  natives  have 
a  great  idea  of  modesty,  and  consider  it  extremely  indelicate 
to  expose  the  whole  person.  If  either  a  man  or  woman  should 
be  discovered  without  the  '  maro'  or  '  liku/  they  would  prob- 
ably be  killed."  Williams,  the  great  authority  on  Fijians, 
says  that  "  Commodore  Wilkes's  account  of  Fijian  marriages 
seems  to  be  compounded  of  Oriental  notions  and  Ovalan 
yarns  "  (147).  Having  been  a  mere  globe-trotter,  it  is  natural 
that  he  should  have  erred  in  his  interpretation  of  Fijian  cus- 
toms, but  it  is  unpardonable  in  anthropologists  to  accept  such 
conclusions  without  examination.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
scant  Fijian  attire  has  nothing  to  do  with  modesty  ;  quite  the 
contrary.  Williams  says  (147)  "  that  young  unmarried  women 
wear  a  liku  little  more  than  a  hand's  breadth  in  depth,  which 
does  not  meet  at  the  hips  by  several  inches  ; "  and  Seeman 
writes  (168)  that  Fijian  girls  "  wore  nothing  but  a  girdle  of 
hibiscus  fibres,  about  six  inches  wide,  dyed  black,  red,  yellow, 
white,  or  brown,  and  put  on  in  such  a  coquettish  way  that 
one  thought  it  must  come  off  every  moment."  Westermarck, 
with  whom  for  once  we  can  agree,  justly  observes  (190)  that 
such  a  costume  "  is  far  from  being  in  harmony  with  our  ideas 
of  modesty,"  and  that  its  real  purpose  is  to  attract  attention. 
As  elsewhere  among  such  peoples  the  matter  is  strictly  reg- 
ulated by  fashion.  "Both  sexes,"  says  Williams  (143),  "go 
unclad  until  the  tenth  year  and  some  beyond  that.  Chiefs' 
children  are  kept  longest  without  dress."  Any  deviation 
from  a  local  custom,  however  ludicrous  that  custom  may  be, 
seems  to  barbarians  punishable  and  preposterous.  Thus,  a 
Fijian  priest  whose  sole  attire  consisted  in  a  loin-cloth  (mast) 
exclaimed  on  hearing  of  the  gods  of  the  naked  New  Hebri- 
deans  :  "  Not  possessed  of  masi  and  pretend  to  have  gods ! " 


EMOTIONAL   CURIOSITIES  493 

The  alleged  chastity  of  Fijians  is  as  illusive  as  their  modesty. 
Girls  who  had  been  betrothed  as  infants  were  carefully  guarded, 
and  adultery  savagely  punished  by  clubbing  or  strangling  ; 
but,  as  I  made  clear  in  the  chapter  on  jealousy,  such  vindict- 
ive punishment  does  not  indicate  a  regard  for  chastity,  but  is 
merely  revenge  for  infringement  on  property  rights.  The 
national  custom  permitting  a  man  whose  conjugal  property  had 
been  molested  to  retaliate  by  subjecting  the  culprit's  wife  to 
the  same  treatment  in  itself  indicates  an  utfer  absence  of  the 
notion  of  chastity  as  a  virtue.  Like  the  Papuan,  Melanesian, 
and  Polynesian  inhabitants  of  the  Pacific  Islands  in  general, 
the  Fijians  were  utterly  licentious.  Young  women,  says 
Williams  (145)  are  the  victims  of  man's  lust ;  "all  the  evils 
of  the  most  licentious  sensuality  are  found  among  this  people. 
In  the  case  of  the  chiefs,  these  are  fully  carried  out,  and  the 
vulgar  follow  as  far  as  their  means  will  allow.  But  here,  even 
at  the  risk  of  making  the  picture  incomplete,  there  may  not 
be  given  a  faithful  representation  "  (115).  When  a  band  of 
warriors  returns  victorious,  they  are  met  by  the  women ;  but 
"  the  words  of  the  women's  song  may  not  be  translated  ;  nor 
are  the  obscene  gestures  of  their  dance,  in  which  the  young 
virgins  are  compelled  to  take  part,  or  the  foul  insults  offered 
to  the  corpses  of  the  slain,  fit  to  be  described.  .  .  .  On 
these  occasions  the  ordinary  social  restrictions  are  destroyed, 
and  the  unbridled  and  indiscriminate  indulgence  of  every 
evil  lust  and  passion  completes  the  scene  of  abomination " 
(43).  Yet,  "  voluntary  breach  of  the  marriage  contract  is 
rare  in  comparison  with  that  which  is  enforced,  as,  for  in- 
stance, when  the  chief  gives  up  the  women  of  a  town  to  a 
company  of  visitors  or  warriors.  Compliance  with  this  man- 
date is  compulsory,  but  should  the  woman  conceal  it  from 
her  husband,  she  would  be  severely  punished  "  (147). 


EMOTIONAL   CURIOSITIES 

When  Williams  adds  to  the  last  sentence  that  "fear  pre- 
vents unfaithfulness  more  than  affection,  though  I  believe 
that  instances  of  the  latter  are  numerous,"  we  must  not  allow 


494  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

ourselves  to  be  deceived  by  a  word.  Fijian  "  affection  "  is  a 
thing  quite  different  from  the  altruistic  feeling  we  mean  by 
the  word.  It  may  in  a  wife  assume  the  form  of  a  blind 
attachment,  like  that  of  a  dog  to  a  cruel  master,  but  is  not 
likely  to  go  beyond  that,  since  even  the  most  primitive  love 
between  parents  and  children  is  confessedly  shallow,  tran- 
sient, or  entirely  absent.  Williams  (154,  142)  "  noticed  cases 
beyond  number  where  natural  affection  was  wanting  on  both 
sides  ;  "  two- thirds  of  the  offspring  are  killed,  "  such  children 
as  are  allowed  to  live  are  treated  with  a  foolish  fondness  " — 
and  fondness  is,  as  we  have  seen,  not  an  altruistic  but  an 
egoistic  feeling.  In  writing  about  Fijian  friendships  our 
author  says  (117) :  "The  high  attainments  which  constitute 
friendship  are  known  to  very  few.  .  .  .  Full-grown  men, 
it  is  true,  will  walk  about  together,  hand  in  hand,  with  boyish 
kindliness,  or  meet  with  hugs  and  embraces  ;  but  their  love, 
though  specious,  is  hardly  real."  Obviously  the  keen-eyed 
missionary  here  had  in  mind  the  distinction  between  senti- 
mentality and  sentiment.  Sentimentality  of  a  most  extraor- 
dinary kind  is  also  found  in  the  attitude  of  sons  toward  par- 
ents. A  Fijian  considered  it  a  mark  of  affection  to  club  an 
aged  parent  (157),  and  Williams  has  seen  the  breast  of  a  fero- 
cious savage  heave  and  swell  with  strong  emotion  on  bidding 
a  temporary  farewell  to  his  aged  father,  whom  he  afterward 
strangled  (117).  Such  are  the  emotions  of  barbarians — 
shallow,  fickle,  capricious — as  different  from  our  affection  as 
a  brook  which  dries  up  after  every  shower  is  from  the  deep 
and  steady  current  of  a  river  which  dispenses  its  beneficent 
waters  even  in  a  drought. 


FIJIAN"  LOVE-POEMS 

In  his  article  on  Fijian  poetry,  referred  to  in  the  chapter 
on  Coyness,  Sir  Arthur  Gordon  informs  us  that  among  the 
" sentimental "  class  of  poems  "there  are  not  a  few  which 
are  licentious,  and  many  more  which,  though  not  open  to 
that  reproach,  are  coarse  and  indecent  in  their  plain-spoken- 
ness/'  Others  of  the  love-songs,  he  declares,  have  "  a  ring  of 


FIJIAN   LOVE-POEMS  495 

true  feeling  very  nnlike  what  is  usually  found  in  similar 
Polynesian  compositions,  and  which  may  be  searched  for  in 
vain  in  Gill's  Songs  of  the  Pacific."  These  songs,  he  adds, 
"more  nearly  resemble  European  love-songs  than  any  with 
which  I  am  acquainted  among  other  semi-savage  races  ;"  and 
he  finds  in  them  "  a  ring  of  true  passion  as  if  of  love  arising 
not  from  mere  animal  instinct  but  intelligent  association." 
I  for  my  part  cannot  find  in  them  even  a  hint  at  supersensual 
altruistic  sentiment.  To  give  the  reader  a  chance  to  judge 
for  himself  I  cite  the  following  : 


JTe.—I  seek  my  lady  in  the  house  when  the  breeze  blows, 

I  say  to  her,  "Arrange  the  house,  unfold  the  mats,  bring  the  pillows,  sit 

down  and  let  us  talk  together." 

I  say  "  Why  do  you  provoke  me  ?  Be  sure  men  despise  coquetry  such  as 
yours,  though  they  disguise  from  you  the  scorn  they  feel.  Nay, 
be  not  angry;  grant  me  to  hold  thy  fairly  tattooed  hand.  I  am 
distracted  with  love.  I  would  fain  weep  if  I  could  move  thee  to 
tears." 

She.  — You  are  cruel,  my  love,  and  perverse.     To  think  thus  much  of  an 

idle  jest. 
The  setting  sun  bids  all  repose.     Night  is  nigh. 


II 

I  lay  till  dawn  of  day,  peacefully  asleep, 

But  when  the  sun  rose,  I  rose  too  and  ran  without. 

I  hastily  gathered  the  sweetest  flowers  I  could  find,  shaking  them  from 

the  branches. 

I  came  near  the  dwelling  of  my  love  with  my  sweet  scented  burden. 
As  I  came  near  she  saw  me,  and  called  playfully, 
"  What  birds  are  you  flying  here  so  early  ?  " 
"  I  am  a  handsome  youth  and  not  a  bird,"  I  replied, 
"  But  like  a  bird  I  am  mateless  and  forlorn." 
She  took  a  garland  of  flowers  off  her  neck  and  gave  it  to  me 
I  in  return  gave  her  my  comb ;  I  threw  it  to  her  and  ah  me !  it  strikes  her 

face ! 
"  What  rough  bark  of  a  tree  are  you  made  from  ?"  she  cries.     And  so 

saying  she  turned  and  went  away  in  anger. 


496  ISLAND    LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 


III 

In  the  mountain  war  of  1876  there  was  in  the  native  force 
on  the  government  side  a  handsome  lad  of  the  name  of 
Naloko,  much  admired  by  the  ladies.  One  day,  all  the  camp 
and  the  village  of  Nasauthoko  were  found  singing  this  song, 
which  someone  had  composed  : 

The  wind  blows  over  the  great  mountain  of  Magondro, 

It  blows  among  the  rocks  of  Magondro. 

The  same  wind  plays  in  and  raises  the  yellow  locks  qf  Naloko. 

Thou  lovest  me,  Naloko,  and  to  thee  I  am  devoted, 

Shouldst  thou  forsake  me,  sleep  would  forever  forsake  me. 

Shouldst  thou  enfold  another  in  thine  arms, 

All  food  would  be  to  me  as  the  bitter  root  of  the  via. 

The  world  to  me  would  become  utterly  joyless 

Without  thee,  my  handsome,  slender  waisted, 

Strong-shouldered,  pillar-necked  lad." 

SERENADES   AND   PROPOSALS 

At  the  time  when  Williams  studied  the  Fijians,  their  poetry 
consisted  of  dirges,  serenades,  wake-songs,  war-songs,  and 
hymns  for  the  dance  (99).  Of  love-songs  addressed  to  in- 
dividuals he  says  nothing.  The  serenades  do  not  come 
under  that  head,  since,  as  he  says  (140),  they  are  practised  at 
night  "by  companies  of  men  and  women" — which  takes  all 
the  romance  out  of  them.  One  detail  of  the  romance  of 
courtship  had,  however,  been  introduced  even  in  his  time, 
through  European  influence.  "Popping  the  question"  is, 
he  says,  of  recent  date,  "  and  though  for  the  most  part  done 
by  the  men,  yet  the  women  do  not  hesitate  to  adopt  the 
same  course  when  so  inclined."  No  violent  individual  pref- 
erence seems  to  be  shown.  The  following  is  a  specimen  of  a 
man's  proposal. 

Simioni  Wang  Ravou,  wishing  to  bring  the  woman  he 
wanted  to  a  decision,  remarked  to  her,  in  the  hearing  of  sev- 
eral other  persons  : 

<f  I  do  not  wish  to  have  you  because  you  are  a  good-looking 
woman  ;  that  you  are  not.  But  a  woman  is  like  a  necklace 


SUICIDES   AND   BACHELORS  497 

of  flowers — pleasant  to  the  eye  and  grateful  to  the  smell  : 
but  such  a  necklace  does  not  long  continue  attractive  ;  beau- 
tiful as  it  is  one  day,  the  next  it  fades  and  loses  its  scent. 
Yet  a  pretty  necklace  tempts  one  to  ask  for  it,  but,  if  refused 
no  one  will  often  repeat  his  request.  If  you  love  me,  I  love 
you  ;  but  it'  not,  neither  do  I  love  you  :  let  it  be  a  settled 
thing  "  (150). 

SUICIDES   AND   BACHELORS 

Hearts  are  not  likely  to  be  broken  by  a  refusal  under  such 
circumstances,  which  bears  out  Williarns's  remark  (148)  that 
no  distinctive  preference  is  apparent  among  these  men  and 
women.  Under  such  circumstances  it  may  appear  strange 
that  some  widowers  should  commit  suicide  upon  the  death  of 
a  wife,  as  Seeman  assures  us  they  do  (193).  Does  not  this  in- 
dicate deep  feeling  ?  Not  in  a  savage.  In  all  countries  suicide 
is  usually  a  sign  of  a  weak  intellect  rather  than  of  strong 
feelings,  and  especially  is  this  the  case  among  the  lower  races, 
where  both  men  and  women  are  apt  to  commit  suicide  in  a 
moment  of  excitement,  often  for  the  most  trivial  cause,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  next  chapter.  Williams  tells  us  (10G)  of 
a  chief  on  Thithia  who  was  addressed  disrespectfully  by  a 
younger  brother  and  who,  rather  than  live  to  have  the  insult 
made  the  topic  of  common  talk,  loaded  his  musket,  placed 
the  muzzle  at  his  breast,  and  pushing  the  trigger  with  his  toe, 
shot  himself  through  the  heart.  He  knew  a  similar  case  on 
Vanua  Levu. 

"  Pride  and  anger  combined  often  lead  to  self-destruction. 
.  .  .  The  most  common  method  of  suicide  in  Fiji  is  by 
jumping  over  a  precipice.  This  is,  among  the  women,  the 
fashionable  way  of  destroying  themselves  ;  but  they  some- 
times resort  to  the  rope.  Of  deadly  poisons  they  are  ignor- 
ant, and  drowning  would  be  a  difficult  thing;  for  from  in- 
fancy they  learn  to  be  almost  as  much  at  home  in  the  water 
as  on  dry  land." 

In  his  book  on  the  Melanesians  Codrington  says  (243)  that 
"  a  wife  jealous  of  her  husband,  or  in  any  way  incensed  at 
him,  would  in  former  times  throw  herself  from  a  cliff  or  tree, 
swim  out  to  sea,  hang  or  strangle  herself,  stab  herself  with 


498  ISLAND   LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 

an  arrow,  or  thrust  one  down  her  throat ;  and  a  man  jealous 
or  quarrelling  with  his  wife  would  do  the  like  ;  but  now  it  is 
easy  to  go  off  with  another's  wife  or  husband  in  a  labor  ves- 
sel to  Queensland  or  Fiji." 

There  is  one  class  of  men  in  Fiji  who  are  not  likely  to 
commit  suicide.  They  are  the  bachelors,  who,  though  they 
are  scorned  and  frowned  on  in  this  life,  must  look  forward  to 
a  worse  fate  after  death.  There  is  a  special  god,  named 
Nangganangga —  "the  bitter  hater  of  bachelors"  —  who 
watches  for  their  souls,  and  so  untiring  is  his  watch,  as  Will- 
iams was  informed  (206),  that  no  unwedded  spirit  has  ever 
reached  the  Elysium  of  Fiji.  Sly  bachelors  sometimes  try 
to  dodge  him  by  stealing  around  the  edge  of  a  certain  reef  at 
low  tide  ;  but  he  is  up  to  their  tricks,  seizes  them  and  dashes 
them  to  pieces  on  the  large  black  stone,  just  as  one  shatters 
rotten  fire-wood. 

SAMOA**    TRAITS 

Cruel  and  degraded  as  the  Fijians  are,  they  mark  a  consid- 
erable advance  over  the  Australian  savages.  A  further  ad- 
vance is  to  be  noted  as  we  come  to  the  Samoans.  Cannibal- 
ism was  indulged  in  occasionally  in  more  remote  times,  but 
not,  as  in  Fiji,  owing  to  a  relish  for  human  flesh,  but  merely 
as  a  climax  of  hatred  and  revenge.  To  speak  of  roasting  a 
Samoan  chief  is  a  deadly  insult  and  a  cause  for  war  (Turner, 
108).  Sympathy  was  a  feeling  known  to  Samoans ;  their 
treatment  of  the  sick  was  invariably  humane  (141).  And 
whereas  in  Australia,  Borneo,  and  Fiji,  it  is  just  as  honor- 
able to  slay  a  female  as  a  male,  Samoans  consider  it  cowardly 
to  kill  a  woman  (196).  Nor  do  they  practise  infanticide  ; 
but  this  abstinence  is  counterbalanced  by  the  fact  that  the 
custdm  of  destroying  infants  before  birth  prevailed  to  a  mel- 
ancholy extent  (79). 

Yet  here  as  everywhere  we  discover  that  the  sexual  refine- 
ment on  which  the  capacity  for  supersensual  love  depends 
comes  last  of  the  virtues.  The  Rev.  George  Turner,  who 
had  forty  years  of  experience  among  the  Polynesians,  writes 
(125)  that  at  their  dances  "  all  kinds  of  obscenity  in  looks, 


SAMOAN   TRAITS  499 

language,  and  gesture  prevailed ;  and  often  they  danced  and 
revelled  till  daylight."  The  universal  custom  of  tattooing 
was  connected  with  immoral  practices  (90).  During  the 
wedding  ceremonies  of  chiefs  the  friends  of  the  bride  "  took 
up  stones  and  beat  themselves  until  their  heads  were  bruised 
and  bleeding.  The  ceremony  to  prove  her  virginity  which 
preceded  this  burst  of  feeling  will  not  bear  the  light  of  de- 
scription. .  .  .  Night  dances  and  the  attendant  immor- 
alities wound  up  the  ceremonies."  The  same  obscene  cere- 
monies, he  adds,  were  gone  through,  and  this  custom,  he 
thinks,  had  some  influence  in  cultivating  chastity,  especially 
among  young  women  of  rank  who  feared  the  disgrace  and 
beating  that  was  the  lot  of  faithless  brides.  Presents  were 
also  given  to  those  who  had  preserved  their  virtue  ;  but  the 
result  of  these  efforts  is  thus  summed  up  by  Turner  (91)  : 

"  Chastity  was  ostensibly  cultivated  by  both  sexes  ;  but  it 
was  more  a  name  than  a  reality.  From  their  childhood  their 
ears  were  familiar  with  the  most  obscene  conversation  ;  and 
as  a  whole  family,  to  some  extent,  herded  together,  immorality 
was  the  natural  and  prevalent  consequence.  There  were  ex- 
ceptions, especially  among  the  daughters  of  persons  of  rank  ; 
but  they  were  the  exceptions,  not  the  rule.  Adultery,  too, 
was  sadly  prevalent,  although  often  severely  punished  by  pri- 
vate revenge." 

When  a  chief  took  a  wife,  the  bride's  uncle  or  other  rel- 
ative had  to  give  up  a  daughter  at  the  same  time  to  be  his 
concubine ;  to  refuse  this,  would  have  been  to  displease  the 
household  god.  A  girFs  consent  was  a  matter  of  secondary 
importance  :  "  She  had  to  agree  if  her  parents  were  in  favor 
of  the  match."  Many  marriages  were  made  chiefly  for  the 
sake  of  the  attendant  festivities,  the  bride  being  compelled 
to  go  whether  or  not  she  was  willing.  In  this  way  a  chief 
might  in  a  short  time  get  together  a  harem  of  a  dozen  wives  ; 
but  most  of  them  remained  with  him  only  a  short  time  :  "  If 
the  marriages  had  been  contracted  merely  for  the  sake  of  the 
property  and  festivities  of  the  occasion,  the  wife  was  not 
likely  to  be  more  than  a  few  days  or  weeks  with  her  hus- 
band." 


500  ISLAND    LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 


COURTSHIP   PANTOMIME 

Elopements  occur  in  Samoa  in  some  cases  where  parental 
consent  is  refused.  A  vivid  description  of  the  pantomimic 
courtship  preceding  an  elopement  has  been  given  by  Knbary 
(Globus,  1885).  A  young  warrior  is  surrounded  by  a  bevy 
of  girls.  Though  unarmed,  he  makes  various  gestures  as  if 
spearing  or  clubbing  an  enemy,  for  which  the  girls  cheer 
him. 

He  then  selects  one,  who  at  first  seems  coyly  unwilling,  and 
begins  a  dance  with  her.  She  endeavors  to  look  indifferent 
and  forbidding,  while  he,  with  longing  looks  and  words,  tries 
to  win  her  regard.  Presently,  yielding  to  his  solicitations, 
she  smiles,  and  opens  her  arms  for  him.  But  he,  foolishly, 
stops  to  reproach  her  for  holding  him  off  so  long.  He 
shakes  his  head,  rolls  his  eyes,  and  lo  !  when  he  gets  ready 
to  grasp  her  at  last,  she  eludes  him  again,  with  a  mocking 
laugh. 

It  is  now  his  turn  to  be  perverse.  Eevenge  is  in  his  mind 
and  mien.  All  his  looks  and  gestures  indicate  contempt  and 
malice,  and  he  keeps  turning  his  back  to  her.  She  can- 
not endure  this  long ;  his  scorn  overcomes  her  pride,  and 
when  he  changes  his  attitude  and  once  more  begins  to  en- 
treat, she  at  last  allows  him  to  seize  her  and  they  dance 
wildly.  When  finally  the  company  separates  for  the  evening 
meal,  one  may  hear  the  word  toro  whispered.  It  means 
"  cane/'  and  indicates  a  nocturnal  rendezvous  in  the  cane- 
field,  where  lovers  are  safe  from  observation.  They  find  each 
other  by  imitating  the  owl's  sound,  which  excites  no  sus- 
picion. 

When  they  have  met,  the  girl  says  :  "  You  know  that  my 
parents  hate  you  ;  nothing  remains  but  awenga"  Awenga 
means  flight  ;  three  nights  later  they  elope  in  a  canoe  to  some 
small  island,  where  they  remain  for  a  few  weeks  till  the  excite- 
ment over  their  disappearance  has  subsided  in  the  village  and 
their  parents  are  ready  to  pardon  them. 


TWO    SAMOAN    LOVE-STORIES  501 


TWO    SAMOAN    LOVE-STORIES 

Turner  devotes  six  pages  (98-104)  to  two  Saraoan  love- 
stories.  One  of  them  illustrates  the  devotion  of  a  wife  and 
her  husband's  ingratitude  and  faithlessness,  as  the  following 
summary  will  show  : 

There  was  a  youth  called  Siati,  noted  for  his  singing.  A 
serenading  god  came  along,  threw  down  a  challenge,  and 
promised  him  his  fair  daughter  if  he  was  the  better  singer. 
They  sang  and  Siati  beat  the  god.  Then  he  rode  on  a  shark 
to  the  god's  home  and  the  shark  told  him  to  go  to  the  bath- 
ing-place, where  he  would  find  the  god's  daughters.  The 
girls  had  just  left  the  place  when  Siati  arrived,  but  one  of 
them  had  forgotten  her  comb  and  came  back  to  get  it. 
"  Siati,"  said  she,  "  however  have  you  come  here  ?"  "  I've 
come  to  seek  the  song-god  and  get  his  daughter  to  wife." 
"My  father,"  said  she,  "is  more  of  a  god  than  man — eat 
nothing  he  hands  you,  never  sit  on  a  high  seat  lest  death 
should  follow,  and  now  let  us  unite." 

The  god  did  not  like  his  son-in-law  and  tried  various  ways 
to  destroy  him,  but  his  wife  Puapae  always  helped  him  out  of 
the  scrape,  one  time  even  making  him  cut  her  into  two  and 
throw  her  into  the  sea  to  be  eaten  by  a  fish  and  find  a  ring 
the  god  had  lost  and  asked  him  to  get.  She  was  afterward 
cast  ashore  with  the  ring  ;  but  Siati  had  not  even  kept 
awake,  and  she  scolded  him  for  it.  To  save  his  life,  she  sub- 
sequently performed  several  other  miracles,  in  one  of  which 
her  father  and  sister  were  drowned  in  the  sea.  Then  she  said  to 
Siati :  "  My  father  and  sister  are  dead,  and  all  on  account  of 
my  love  to  you  ;  you  may  go  now  and  visit  your  family  and 
friends  while  I  remain  here,  but  see  that  you  do  not  behave 
unseemly."  He  went,  visited  his  friends,  and  forgot  Puapae. 
He  tried  to  marry  again,  but  Puapae  came  and  stood  on  the 
other  side.  The  chief  called  out,  ' '  Which  is  your  wife, 
Siati  ?"  "  The  one  on  the  right  side."  Puapae  then  broke 
silence  with,  "Ah,  Siati,  you  have  forgotten  all  I  did  for 
you  ; "  and  off  she  went.  Siati  remembered  it  all,  darted 
after  her  crying,  and  then  fell  down  dead. 

Apart  from  the  amusing  "  suddenness  "  of  the  proposal 
and  the  marriage,  this  tale  is  of  interest  as  indicating  that 
among  the  lower  races  woman  has — as  many  observations  in- 
dicate— a  greater  capacity  for  conjugal  attachment  than  man. 


502  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

The  courtship  scene  cited  above  indicates  an  instinctive 
knowledge  of  the  strategic  value  of  coyness  and  feigned  dis- 
pleasure. The  following  story,  which  I  condense  from  the 
versified  form  in  which  Turner  gives  it,  would  seem  to  be  a 
sort  of  masculine  warning  to  women  against  the  danger  and 
folly  of  excessive  coyness,  so  inconvenient  to  the  men  : 

Once  there  were  two  sisters,  Sinaleuuna  and  Sinaeteva, 
who  wished  they  had  a  brother.  Their  wish  was  gratified  ; 
a  boy  was  born  to  their  parents,  but  they  brought  him  up 
apart,  and  the  sisters  never  saw  him  till  one  day,  when  he 
had  grown  up,  he  was  sent  to  them  with  some  food.  The 
girls  were  struck  with  his  beauty. 

Afterwards  they  sat  down  and  filled  into  a  bamboo  bottle 
the  liquid  shadow  of  their  brother.  A  report  had  come  to 
them  of  Sina,  a  Fijian  girl  who  was  so  beautiful  that  all  the 
swells  were  running  after  her.  Hearing  this,  and  being 
anxious  to  get  a  wife  for  their  brother,  they  dressed  up  and 
went  to  Fiji,  intending  to  tell  Sina  about  their  brother. 
But  Sina  was  haughty ;  she  slighted  the  sisters  and  treated 
them  shamefully.  She  had  heard  of  the  beauty  of  the  young 
man,  whose  name  was  Maluafiti  ("  Shade  of  Fiji  "),  and  longed 
for  his  coming,  but  did  not  know  that  these  were  his  sisters. 

The  slighted  girls  got  angry  and  went  to  the  water  when 
Sina  was  taking  her  bath.  From  the  bottle  they  threw  out 
on  the  water  the  shadow  of  their  brother.  Sina  looked  at  the 
shadow  and  was  struck  with  its  beauty.  "  That  is  my  hus- 
band," she  said,  "  wherever  I  can  find  him."  She  called  out 
to  the  villagers  for  all  the  handsome  young  men  to  come  and 
find  out  of  whom  the  figure  in  the  water  was  the  image. 
But  the  shadow  was  more  beautiful  than  any  of  these  young 
men  and  it  wheeled  round  and  round  in  the  water  whenever 
Maluafiti,  in  his  own  land,  turned  about.  All  this  time  the 
sisters  were  weeping  and  exclaiming  : 

"  Oh,  Maluafiti !  rise  up,  it  is  day  ; 
Your  shadow  prolongs  our  ill-treatment. 
Maluafiti,  come  and  talk  with  her  face  to  face, 
Instead  of  that  image  in  the  water." 

Sina  had  listened,  and  now  she  knew  it  was  the  shadow  of 
Maluafiti.  "  These  are  his  sisters  too/'  she  thought,  "  and 
I  have  been  ill-using  them  ;  forgive  me,  Fve  done  wrong." 
But  the  ladies  were  angry  still.  Maluafiti  came  in  his  canoe 


CHARMS   OF   SOUTH   SEA   ISLANDERS         503 

to  court  Lady  Sina,  and  also  to  fetch  his  sisters.  When  they 
told  him  of  their  treatment  he  flew  into  an  implacable  rage. 
Sina  longed  to  get  him  ;  he  was  her  heart's  desire  and  long 
she  had  waited  for  him.  But  Maluafiti  frowned  and  would 
return  to  his  island,  and  off  he  went  with  his  sisters.  Sina 
cried  and  screamed,  and  determined  to  follow  swimming. 
The  sisters  pleaded  to  save  and  to  bring  her,  but  Maluafiti 
relented  not  and  Sina  died  in  the  ocean. 


PERSONAL   CHAEMS   OF   SOUTH   SEA   ISLANDERS 

"  Falling  in  love  "  with  a  person  of  the  other  sex  on  the 
mere  report  of  his  or  her  beauty  is  a  very  familiar  motive  in 
the  literature  of  Oriental  and  mediaeval  nations  in  particular. 
It  is,  therefore,  interesting  to  find  such  a  motive  in  the  Sa- 
moan  story  just  cited.  In  my  view,  as  previously  explained, 
beauty,  among  the  lower  races,  means  any  kind  of  attractive- 
ness, sensual  more  frequently  than  esthetic.  The  South  Sea 
Islanders  have  been  credited  with  considerable  personal 
charms,  although  it  is  now  conceded  that  the  early  voyagers 
(to  whom,  after  an  absence  from  shore  of  several  months,  almost 
any  female  must  have  seemed  a  Helen)  greatly  exaggerated  their 
beauty. 

Captain  Cook  kept  a  level  head.  He  found  Tongan  wom- 
en less  distinguished  from  the  men  by  their  features  than 
by  their  forms,  while  in  the  case  of  Hawaiians  even  the  fig- 
ures were  remarkably  similar  (II.,  144,  246).  In  Tahitian 
women  he  saw  "  all  those  delicate  characteristics  which  dis- 
tinguish them  from  the  men  in  other  countries."  The  Ha- 
waiians, though  far  from  being  ugly,  are  "neither  remarka- 
ble for  a  beautiful  shape,  nor  for  striking  features"  (246). 

The  indolent,  open-air,  amphibious  life  led  by  the  South  Sea 
Islanders  was  favorable  to  the  development  of  fine  bodies. 
Cook  saw  among  the  Tongans  "  some  absolutely  perfect  mod- 
els of  the  human  figure."  But  fine  feathers  do  not  make  fine 
birds.  The  nobler  phases  of  love  are  not  inspired  by  fine 
figures  so  much  as  by  beautiful  and  refined  faces.  Polyne- 
sian and  Melanesian  features  are  usually  coarse  and  sensual. 
Hugo  Zoller  says  that  "  the  most  beautiful  Samoan  woman 


504  ISLAND    LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 

would  stand  comparison  at  best  with  a  pretty  German  peasant 
girl  ; "  and  from  my  own  observations  at  Honolulu,,  and  a 
study  of  many  photographs,,  I  conclude  that  what  he  says 
applies  to  the  Pacific  Islanders  in  general.  Edward  Reeves, 
in  his  recent  volume  on  Brown  Men  and  Women  (17-22), 
speaks  of  "that  fraud — the  beautiful  brown  woman."  He 
found  her  a  "dream  of  beauty  and  refinement"  only  in  the 
eyes  of  poets  and  romancers  ;  in  reality  they  were  malodorous 
and  vulgar.  "  All  South  Sea  Island  women  are  very  much  the 
same."  "  To  compare  the  prettiest  Tongan,  Samoan,  Tahi- 
tian,  or  even  Rotuman,  to  the  plainest  and  most  simply  edu- 
cated Irish,  French,  or  Colonial  girl  that  has  been  decently 
brought  up  is  an  insult  to  one's  intelligence."  Wilkes  (II., 
'22)  hesitated  to  speak  of  the  Tahitian  females  because  he 
could  not  discover  their  much-vaunted  beauty  :  "  I  did  not 
see  among  them  a  single  woman  whom  I  could  call  handsome. 
They  have,  indeed,  a  soft  sleepiness  about  the  eyes,  which 
may  be  fascinating  to  some,  but  I  should  rather  ascribe  the 
celebrity  their  charms  have  obtained  among  navigators  to 
their  cheerfulness  and  gaiety.  Their  figures  are  bad,  and  the 
greater  part  of  them  are  parrot-toed." 


TAHITIANS   AND   THEIR   WHITE   VISITORS 

Tongan  girls  are  referred  to  in  Reeves's  book  as  "  bundles 
of  blubber."  It  is  not  necessary  to  refer  once  more  to  the 
fact  that  "blubber"  is  the  criterion  and  ideal  of  "  beauty" 
among  the  Pacific  Islanders,  as  among  barbarians  in  general. 
Consequently  their  love  cannot  have  been  ennobled  by  any  of 
the  refined,  esthetic,  intellectual,  and  moral  qualities  which 
vare  embodied  in  a  refined  face  and  a  daintily  modelled  figure. 

Coarsest  of  all  the  Polynesians  were  the  Tahitians;  yet 
even  here  efforts  have  been  made  l  to  convey  the  impression 
that  they  owed  their  licentious  practices  to  the  influence  of 
white  visitors.  The  grain  of  truth  in  this  assertion  lies  in 
the  undoubted  fact  that  the  whites,  with  their  rum  and 
trinkets  and  diseases,  aggravated  the  evil ;  but  their  contribu- 

1  See  WeBtermarck,  67,  and  footnotes  on  that  page. 


HEARTLESS   TREATMENT    OF   WOMEN        507 

his  cool  plunge  into  the  waves,  for  the  reason  that  she  pleased 
his  senses.  He  could  not  feel  sentimental  love,  for  her,  since, 
f;ir  from  adoring  her,  he  did  not  even  respect  or  well-treat 
her.  Ellis  (I.,  109)  relates  that 

"  The  men  were  allowed  to  eat  the  flesh  of  the  pig,  and  of 
fowls,  and  a  variety  of  fish,  cocoanuts,  and  plantains,  and 
whatever  was  presented  as  an  offering  to  the  gods ;  these  the 
females,  on  pain  of  death,  were  forbidden  to  touch,  as  it  was 
supposed  they  would  pollute  them.  The  fires  at  which  the 
men's  food  was  cooked  were  also  sacred,  and  were  forbidden 
to  be  used  by  the  females.  The  baskets  in  which  their  pro- 
vision was  kept,  and  the  house  in  which  the  men  ate,  were 
also  sacred,  and  prohibited  to  the  females  under  the  same 
cruel  penalty.  Hence  the  inferior  food,  both  for  wives, 
daughters,  etc.,  was  cooked  at  separate  fires,  deposited  in 
distinct  baskets,  and  eaten  in  lonely  solitude  by  the  females, 
in  little  huts  erected  for  the  purpose." 

Not  content  with  this,  when  one  man  wished  to  abuse  an- 
other in  a  particularly  offensive  way  he  would  use  some 
expression  referring  to  this  degraded  condition  of  the  women, 
such  as  "  mayst  thou  be  baked  as  food  for  thy  mother." 
Young  children  were  deliberately  taught  to  disregard  their 
mother,  the  father  encouraging  them  in  their  insults  and  vio- 
lence (205).  Cook  (220)  found  that  Tahitian  women  were 
often  treated  with  a  degree  of  harshness,  or  rather  "  brutal- 
ity," which  one  would  scarcely  suppose  a  man  would  bestow 
on  an  object  for  whom  he  had  the  least  affection.  Nothing, 
however,  is  more  common  than  "  to  see  the  men  beat  them 
without  mercy"  (II. ,  220).  They  killed  more  female  than 
male  infants,  because,  as  they  said,  the  females  were  useless 
for  war,  the  fisheries,  or  the  service  of  the  temple.  For  the 
sick  they  had  no  sympathy  ;  at  times  they  murdered  them  or 
buried  them  alive.  (Ellis,  L,  340  ;  II. ,  281.)  In  battle  they  gave 
no  quarter,  even  to  women  or  children.  (Hawkesworth,  II., 
244.)  "  Every  horrid  torture  was  practised.  The  females  ex- 
perienced brutality  and  murder,  and  the  tenderest  infants 
were  perhaps  transfixed  to  the  mother's  heart  by  a  ruthless 
weapon — caught  up  by  ruffian  hands,  and  dashed  against  the 
rocks  or  the  trees — or  wantonly  thrown  up  into  the  air,  and 


508  ISLAND   LOVE    ON    THE    PACIFIC 

caught  on  the  point  of  the  warrior's  spear,  where  it  writhed 
in  agony,  and  died,  .  .  .  some  having  two  or  three  in- 
fants hanging  on  the  spear  they  bore  across  their  shoulders  " 
(I.,  235-36).  The  bodies  of  females  slain  in  war  were  treated 
with  "  a  degree  of  brutality  as  inconceivable  as  it  was  de- 
testable." 

TWO   STORIES   OF   TAHITIAN   INFATUATION 

While  ferocity,  cruelty,  habitual  wantonness  and  general 
coarseness  are  fatal  obstacles  to  sentimental  love,  they  may  be 
accompanied,  as  we  have  seen,  by  the  violent  sensual  infatu- 
ation which  is  so  often  mistaken  for  love.  Unsuccessful  Ta- 
hitian  suitors  have  been  known  to  commit  suicide  under  the 
influence  of  revenge  and  despair,  as  is  stated  by  Ellis  (I.,  209), 
who  also  notes  two  instances  of  violent  individual  preference. 

The  chief  of  Eimeo,  twenty  years  old,  of  a  mild  disposition, 
became  attached  to  a  Huahine  girl  and  tendered  proposals  of 
marriage.  She  was  a  niece  of  the  principal  roatira  in  the  isl- 
and, but  though  her  family  was  willing,  she  declined  all  his- 
proposals.  He  discontinued  his  ordinary  occupations,  and 
repaired  to  the  habitation  of  the  individual  whose  favor  he 
was  so  anxious  to  obtain.  Here  he  appeared  subject  to  the 
deepest  melancholy,  and  from  morning  to  night,  day  after  day, 
he  attended  his  mistress,  performing  humiliating  offices  with 
apparent  satisfaction.  His  disappointment  finally  became  the 
topic  of  general  conversation.  At  length  the  girl  was  induced 
to  accept  him.  They  were  publicly  married  and  lived  very 
comfortably  together  for  a  few  months,  when  the  wife  died. 

In  the  other  instance  the  girl  was  the  lover  and  the  man  un- 
willing. A  belle  of  Huahine  became  exceedingly  fond  of  the  so- 
ciety of  a  young  man  who  was  temporarily  staying  on  the  island 
and  living  in  the  same  house.  It  was  soon  intimated  to  him 
that  she  wished  to  become  his  companion  for  life.  The  intima- 
tion, however,  was  disregarded  by  the  young  man,  who  ex- 
pressed his  intention  to  prosecute  his  voyage.  The  young 
woman  became  unhappy,  and  made  no  secret  of  the  cause  of 
her  distress.  She  was  assiduous  in  redoubling  her  efforts  to 
please  the  individual  whose  affection  she  was  desirous  to  re- 


CAPTAIN    COOK   ON   TAHITIAN   LOVE         509 

tain.  At  this  period  Ellis  never  saw  him  either  in  the  house 
of  his  friend  or  walking  abroad  without  the  young  woman  by 
his  side.  Finding  the  object  of  her  attachment,  who  was 
probably  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  unmoved  by  her  atten- 
tions, she  not  only  became  exceedingly  unhappy,  but  declared 
that  if  she  continued  to  receive  the  same  indifference  and 
neglect,  she  would  either  strangle  or  drown  herself.  Her 
friends  now  interfered,  using  their  endeavors  with  the  young 
man.  He  relented,  returned  the  attentions  he  had  received, 
and  the  two  were  married.  Their  happiness,  however,  was  of 
short  duration.  The  attachment  which  had  been  so  ardent 
in  the  bosom  of  the  young  woman  before  marriage  was  super- 
seded by  a  dislike  as  powerful,  and  though  he  seemed  not  un- 
kind to  her,  she  not  only  treated  him  with  insult  but  finally 
left  him. 

"  The  marriage  tie,"  says  Ellis  (I.,  213),  "  was  probably  one 
of  the  weakest  and  most  brittle  that  existed  among  them  ; 
neither  party  felt  themselves  bound  to  abide  by  it  any  longer 
than  it  suited  their  convenience.  The  slightest  cause  was 
often  sufficient  to  occasion  or  justify  the  separation." 


CAPTAIN  COOK  ON  TAHITIAN  LOVE 

It  has  been  said  of  Captain  Cook  that  his  maps  and  topo- 
graphical observations  are  characterized  by  remarkable  ac- 
curacy. The  same  may  be  said  in  general  of  his  observations 
regarding  the  natives  of  the  islands  he  visited  more  than  a 
century  ago.  He,  too,  noted  some  cases  of  strong  personal 
preference  among  Tahitians,  but  this  did  not  mislead  him 
into  attributing  to  them  a  capacity  for  true  love :  "  I  have 
seen  several  instances  where  the  women  have  preferred  per- 
sonal beauty  to  interest,  though  I  must  own  that,  even  in 
these  cases,  they  seem  scarcely  susceptible  of  those  delicate 
sentiments  that  are  the  result  of  mutual  affection  ; .  and  I 
believe  that  there  is  less  Platonic  love  in  Otaheite  than  in 
any  other  country." 

Not  that  Captain  Cook  was  infallible.  When  he  came 
across  the  Tonga  group  he  gave  it  the  name  of  "  Friendly  Isl- 


510  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

ands,"  because  of  the  apparently  amicable  disposition  of  the 
natives  toward  him  ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  their  intention 
was  to  massacre  him  and  his  crew  and  take  the  two  ships — a 
plan  which  would  have  been  put  in  execution  if  the  chiefs 
had  not  had  a  dispute  as  to  the  exact  mode  and  time  of 
making  the  assault.1  Cook  was  pleased  with  the  appearance 
and  the  ways  of  these  islanders  ;  they  seemed  kind,  and  he  was 
struck  at  seeing  "  hundreds  of  truly  European  faces"  among 
them.  He  went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  it  was  utterly  wrong 
to  call  them  savages,  "for  a  more  civilized  people  does  not 
exist  under  the  sun."  He  did  not  stay  with  them  long 
enough  to  discover  that  they  were  morally  not  far  above  the 
other  South  Sea  Islanders. 


WERE  THE  TOKGANS   CIVILIZED  ? 

Mariner,  who  lived  among  the  Tongans  four  years,  and 
whose  adventures  and  observations  were  afterward  recorded 
by  Martin,  gives  information  which  indicates  that  Cook  was 
wrong  when  he  said  that  a  more  civilized  people  does  not 
exist  under  the  sun.  "  Thef t,  revenge,  rape  and  murder," 
Mariner  attests  (II.,  140),  "  under  many  circumstances  are 
not  held  to  be  crimes."  It  is  considered  the  duty  of  married 
women  to  remain  true  to  their  husbands  and  this,  Mariner 
thinks,  is  generally  done.  Unmarried  women  "  may  bestow 
their  favors  upon  whomsoever  they  please,  without  any  op- 
probrium "  (165).  Divorced  women,  like  the  unmarried, 
may  admit  temporary  lovers  without  the  least  reproach  or 
secresy.  "  When  a  woman  is  taken  prisoner  (in  war)  she 
generally  has  to  submit ;  but  this  is  a  thing  of  course,  and 
considered  neither  an  outrage  nor  dishonor ;  the  only  dis- 
honor being  to  be  a  prisoner  and  consequently  a  sort  of  ser- 
vant to  the  conqueror.  Eape,  though  always  considered  an 
outrage,  is  not  looked  upon  as  a  crime  unless  the  woman  be 
of  such  rank  as  to  claim  respect  from  the  perpetrator  "  (166). 
Many  of  their  expressions,  when  angry,  are  "  too  indelicate 
to  mention."  "  Conversation  is  often  intermingled  with  al- 

1  See  Mariner  (Martin)  :  Introduction  and  Chap.  XVI. 


WERE   THE   TONGANS    CIVILIZED?  511 

lusions,  even  when  women  are.  present,  which  could  not  be 
allowed  in  any  decent  society  in  England."  Two- thirds  of 
the  women  "are  married  and  are  soon  divorced,  and  are 
married  again  perhaps  three,  four,  or  five  times  in  their 
lives/'  "  No  man  is  understood  to  be  bound  to  conjugal 
fidelity  ;  it  is  no  reproach  to  him  to  intermix  his  amours." 
"  Neither  have  they  any  word  expressive  of  chastity  except 
nofo  mow,  remaining  fixed  or  faithful,  and  which  in  this  sense 
is  only  applied  to  a  married  woman  to  signify  her  fidelity  to 
her  husband."  Even  the  married  women  of  the  lower  classes 
had  to  yield  to  the  wishes  of  the  chiefs,  who  did  not  hesitate 
to  shoot  a  resisting  husband.  (Waitz-Gerland,  VI.,  184.) 

While  these  details  show  that  Captain  Cook  overrated  the 
civilization  of  the  Tongans,  there  are  other  facts  indicating 
that  they  were  in  some  respects  superior  to  other  Polyne- 
sians, at  any  rate.  The  women  are  capable  of  blushing,  and 
they  are  reproached  if  they  change  their  lovers  too  often. 
They  seem  to  have  a  dawning  sense  of  the  value  of  chastity 
and  of  woman's  claims  to  consideration.  In  Mariner's  de- 
scription (I.,  130)  of  a  chief's  wedding  occurs  this  sentence  : 
"  The  dancing  being  over,  one  of  the  old  matabooles  (nobles) 
addressed  the  company,  making  a  moral  discourse  on  the 
subject  of  chastity — advising  the  young  men  to  respect,  in 
all  cases,  the  wives  of  their  neighbors,  and  never  to  take 
liberties  even  with  an  unmarried  woman  against  her  free 
consent."  The  wives  of  chiefs  must  not  go  about  without 
attendants.  Mariner  says,  somewhat  naively,  that  when  a 
man  has  an  amour,  he  keeps  it  secret  from  his  wife,  "  not 
out  of  any  fear  or  apprehension,  but  because  it  is  unnecessary 
to  excite  her  jealousy,  and  make  her  perhaps  unhappy  ;  for 
it  must  be  said,  to  the  honor  of  the  men,  that  they  consult 
in  no  small  degree,  and  in  no  few  respects,  the  happiness 
and  comfort  of  their  wives." 

If  Mariner  tells  the  truth,  it  must  be  said  in  this  respect 
that  the  Tongans  are  superior  to  all  other  peoples  we  have  so 
far  considered  in  this  book.  Though  the  husband's  authority 
at  home  is  absolute,  and  though  one  girl  in  every  three  is 
betrothed  in  her  infancy,  men  do  not,  he  says,  make  slaves  or 


512  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

drudges  of  their  wives,  or  sell  their  daughters,  two  out  of 
every  three  girls  being  allowed  to  choose  their  own  husbands 
. — "  early  and  often."  The  men  do  most  of  the  hard  work, 
even  to  the  cooking.  "  In  Tonga/'  says  Seemann  (237),  "  the 
women  have  been  treated  from  time  immemorial  with  all  the 
consideration  demanded  by  their  weaker  and  more  delicate 
constitution,  not  being  allowed  to  perform  any  hard  work/' 
Cook  also  found  (II.,  149)  that  the  province  allotted  to  the 
men  was  "  far  more  laborious  and  extensive  than  that  of  the 
women,"  whose  employments  were  chiefly  such  as  may  be  ex- 
ecuted in  the  house. 

LOVE   OF   SCENERY 

If  we  may  rely  on  Mariner  there  is  still  another  point  in 
which  the  Tongans  appear  to  be  far  above  other  Polynesians, 
and  barbarians  in  general.  He  would  have  us  believe  that  while 
they  seldom  sing  about  love  or  war,  they  evince  a  remarkable 
love  of  nature  (I.,  293).  He  declares  that  they  sometimes  as- 
cend a  certain  rock  to  "  enjoy  the  sublime  beauty  of  the  sur- 
rounding scenery,"  or  to  reflect  on  the  deeds  of  their  ances- 
tors. He  cites  a  specimen  of  their  songs,  which,  he  says,  is 
often  sung  by  them  ;  it  is  without  rhymes  or  regular  meas- 
ure, and  is  given  in  a  sort  of  recitative  beginning  with  this 
highly  poetic  passage  ; 

"  Whilst  we  were  talking  of  Vavdoo  tooa  Licoo,  the  women 
said  to  us,  let  us  repair  to  the  back  of  the  island  to  contem- 
plate the  setting  sun  :  there  let  us  listen  to  the  warbling  of 
the  birds  and  the  cooing  of  the  wood-pigeon.  We  will  gather 
flowers  .  .  .  and  partake  of  refreshments  .  .  .  we 
will  then  bathe  in  the  sea  and  .  .  .  anoint  our  skins  in 
the  sun  with  sweet-scented  oil,  and  will  plait  in  wreaths  the 
flowers  gathered  at  Matdwto.  And  now,  as  we  stand  motion- 
less on  the  eminence  over  Ana  Mdnoo,  the  whistling  of  the 
wind  among  the  branches  of  the  lofty  toa  shall  fill  us  with  a 
pleasing  melancholy  ;  or  our  minds  shall  be  seized  with  as- 
tonishment as  we  behold  the  roaring  surf  below,  endeavoring 
but  in  vain  to  tear  away  the  firm  rocks.  Oh  !  how  much 
happier  shall  we  be  thus  employed,  than  when  engaged  in 
the  troublesome  and  insipid  affairs  of  life." 


A    CANNIBAL   BARGAIN  513 

Inasmuch  as  Mariner  did  not  take  notes  on  the  spot,  but 
relied  on  his  memory  after  an  absence  of  several  years,  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  the  above  passage  may  not  be  unadulterated 
Tongan.  The  rest  of  the  song  has  a  certain  Biblical  tone 
and  style  in  a  few  of  the  sentences  which  arouse  the  suspicion 
(remember  Ossian  !)  that  a  missionary  may  have  edited,  if  not 
composed,  this  song.  However  that  may  be,  the  remainder 
of  it  gives  us  several  pretty  glimpses  of  Tongan  amorous 
customs  and  may  therefore  be  cited,  omitting  a  few  irrelevant 
sentences  : 

"  Alas  !  how  destructive  is  war  !  —  Behold  !  how  it  has 
rendered  the  land  productive  of  weeds,  and  opened  untimely 
graves  for  departed  heroes  !  Our  chiefs  can  now  no  longer 
enjoy  the  sweet  pleasure  of  wandering  alone  by  moonlight  in 
search  of  their  mistresses  :  but  let  us  banish  sorrow  from  our 
hearts  :  since  we  are  at  war,  we  must  think  and  act  like  the 
natives  of  Fiji,  who  first  taught  us  this  destructive  art.  Let 
us  therefore  enjoy  the  present  time,  for  to-morrow  perhaps 
or  the  next  day  we  may  die.  We  will  dress  ourselves  with 
chi  coola,  and  put  bands  of  white  tappa  round  our  waists  ; 
we  will  plait  thick  wreaths  of  jiale  for  our  heads,  and  pre- 
pare strings  of  liooni  for  our  necks,  that  their  whiteness  may 
show  off  the  color  of  our  skins.  Mark  how  the  uncultivated 
spectators  are  profuse  of  their  applause  ! —  But  now  the 
dance  is  over  :  let  us  remain  here  to-night,  and  feast  and  be 
cheerful,  and  to-morrow  we  will  depart  for  the  Mooa.  How 
troublesome  are  the  young  men,  begging  for  our  wreaths  of 
flowers,  while  they  say  in  their  flattery,  '  See  how  charming 
these  young  girls  look  coming  from  Licoo  ! —  how  beautiful 
are  their  skins,  diffusing  around  a  fragrance  like  the  flowery 
precipice  of  Mataloco  : '  Let  us  also  visit  Licoo  ;  we  will  de- 
part to-morrow." 

A    CANNIBAL   BARGAIN" 

This  story  intimates,  what  may  be  true,  that  the  Fijians 
first  taught  the  Tongans  the  art  of  war,  and  if  the  Tongans 
were  not  originally  a  warlike  people,  we  would  have  in  that 
significant  fact  alone  an  explanation  of  much  of  their  su- 
periority to  other  Pacific  islanders.  The  Fijians  also  ap- 
pear to  have  taught  them  cannibalism,  to  which,  however, 
they  never  became  so  addicted  as  their  teachers.  Mariner 


514  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

(I.,  110-111)  tells  a  story  of  two  girls  who,  in  a  time  of 
scarcity,  agreed  to  play  a  certain  game  with  two  young  men 
on  these  conditions  :  if  the  girls  won,  they  were  to  divide  a 
yam  belonging  to  them  and  give  half  to  the  men  ;  if  the 
two  men  won  they  were  still  to  have  their  share  of  the  yam, 
but  they  were  to  go  and  kill  a  man  and  give  half  his  body  to 
the  girls.  The  men  won  and  promptly  proceeded  to  carry 
ont  their  part  of  the  contract.  Concealing  themselves  near 
a  fortress,  they  soon  saw  a  man  who  came  to  fill  his  cocoanut 
shells  with  water.  They  rushed  on  him  with  their  clubs, 
brought  the  body  home  at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  divided  it 
and  gave  the  young  women  the  promised  half. 


THE   HANDSOME    CHIEFS 

To  Captain  Cook  the  muscular  Tongan  men  conveyed  the 
suggestion  of  strength  rather  than  of  beauty.  They  have, 
however,  a  legend  which  indicates  that  they  had  a  high 
opinion  of  their  personal  appearance.  It  is  related  by  Mariner 
(II.,  129-34).  The  god  Langai  dwelt  in  heaven  with  his  two 
daughters.  One  day,  as  he  was  going  to  attend  a  meeting 
of  the  gods,  he  warned  the  daughters  not  to  go  to  Tonga  to 
gratify  their  curiosity  to  see  the  handsome  chiefs  there.  But 
hardly  had  he  gone  when  they  made  up  their  minds  to  do  that 
very  tLing.  "  Let  us  go  to  Tonga,"  they  said  to  each  other  ; 
"  there  our  celestial  beauty  will  be  appreciated  more  than 
here  where  all  the  women  are  beautiful."  So  they  went  to 
Tonga  and,  arm  in  arm,  appeared  before  the  feasting  nobles, 
who  were  astounded  at  their  beauty  and  all  wanted  the  girls. 
Soon  the  nobles  came  to  blows,  and  the  din  of  battle  was  so 
great  that  it  reached  the  ears  of  the  gods.  Langai  was  de- 
spatched to  bring  back  and  punish  the  girls.  When  he  ar- 
rived, one  of  them  had  already  fallen  a  victim  to  the  contend- 
ing chiefs.  The  other  he  seized,  tore  off  her  head,  and  threw 
it  into  the  sea,  where  it  was  transformed  into  a  turtle. 


HONEYMOON   IN  A   CAVE  515 


HONEYMOON   IN   A   CAVE 

On  the  west  coast  of  the  Tongan  Island  of  Hoonga  there  is 
a  peculiar  cave,  the  entrance  to  which  is  several  feet  beneath 
the  surface  of  the  sea,  even  at  low  water.  It  was  first  dis- 
covered by  a  young  chief,  while  diving  after  a  turtle.  He 
told  no  one  about  it,  and  luckily,  as  we  shall  see.  He  was 
secretly  enamoured  of  a  beautiful  young  girl,  the  daughter 
of  a  certain  chief,  but  as  she  was  betrothed  to  another  man, 
he  dared  not  tell  her  of  his  love.  The  governor  of  the 
islands  was  a  cruel  tyrant,  whose  misdeeds  at  last  incited  this 
girl's  father  to  plot  an  insurrection.  The  plot  unfortunately 
was  discovered  and  the  chief  with  all  his  relatives,  including 
the  beautiful  girl,  condemned  to  be  taken  out  to  sea  in  a 
canoe  and  drowned. 

No  time  was  to  be  lost.  The  lover  hastened  to  the  girl,  in- 
formed her  of  her  danger,  confessed  his  love,  and  begged 
her  to  come  with  him  to  a  place  of  safety.  Soon  her  con- 
senting hand  was  clasped  in  his ;  the  shades  of  evening  fa- 
vored their  escape  ;  while  the  woods  afforded  her  concealment 
until  her  lover  had  brought  a  canoe  to  a  lonely  part  of  the 
beach.  In  this  they  speedily  embarked,  and  as  he  paddled 
her  across  the  smooth  water  he  related  his  discovery  of  the 
cavern  destined  to  be  her  asylum  till  an  opportunity  offered 
of  conveying  her  to  the  Fiji  Islands. 

When  they  arrived  at  the  rock  he  jumped  into  the  water, 
and  she  followed  close  after  ;  they  rose  into  the  cavern,  safe 
from  all  possibility  of  discovery,  unless  he  should  be  watched. 
In  the  morning  he  returned  to  Vavaoo  to  bring  her  mats  to 
lie  on,  and  gnatoo  (prepared  bark  of  mulberry-tree)  for  a 
change  of  dress.  He  gave  her  as  much  of  his  time  as  pru- 
dence allowed,  and  meanwhile  pleaded  his  tale  of  love,  to 
which  she  was  not  deaf;  and  when  she  confessed  that  she, 
too,  had  long  regarded  him  with  a  favorable  eye  (but  a  sense 
of  duty  had  caused  her  to  smother  her  growing  fondness),  his 
measure  of  happiness  was  full. 

This  cave  was  a  very  nice  place  for  a  honeymoon,  but 


516  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

hardly  for  a  permanent  residence.  So  the  young  chief  con- 
trived a  way  of  getting  her  out  of  the  cavernous  prison.  He 
told  his  inferior  chiefs  that  he  wanted  them  to  take  their  fam- 
ilies and  go  with  him  to  Fiji.  A  large  canoe  was  soon  got 
ready,  and  as  they  embarked  he  was  asked  if  he  would  not 
take  a  Tongan  wife  with  him.  He  replied,  No  !  but  that  he 
should  probably  find  one  by  the  way.  They  thought  this  a 
joke,  but  when  they  came  to  the  spot  where  the  cave  was,  he 
asked  them  to  wait  while  he  went  into  the  sea  to  fetch  his 
wife.  As  he  dived,  they  began  to  suspect  he  was  insane,  and 
as  he  did  not  soon  reappear  they  feared  he  had  been  devoured 
by  a  shark. 

While  they  were  deliberating  what  to  do,  all  at  once,  to 
their  great  surprise,  he  rose  to  the  surface  and  brought  into 
the  canoe  a  beautiful  young  woman  who,  they  all  supposed, 
had  been  drowned  with  her  family.  The  chief  now  told  the 
story  of  the  cave,  and  they  proceeded  to  Fiji,  where  they  lived 
some  years,  until  the  cruel  governor  of  Tonga  died,  where- 
upon they  returned  to  that  island. 


A    HAWAIIAN    CAVE-STOEY 

In  an  interesting  book  called  The  Legends  and  Myths  of 
Hawaii,  by  King  Kalakaua,  there  is  a  tale  called  "  Kaala, 
the  Flower  of  Lanai  ;  A  Story  of  the  Spouting  Cave  of  Pali- 
kaholo,"  which  also  involves  the  use  of  a  submarine  cave,  but 
has  a  tragic  ending.  It  takes  the  King  fifteen  pages  to  tell 
it,  but  the  following  condensed  version  retains  all  the  details 
of  the  original  that  relate  directly  to  love  : 

Beneath  a  bold  rocky  bluff  on  the  coast  of  Lanai  there  is 
a  cave  whose  only  entrance  is  through  the  vortex  of  a  whirl- 
pool. Its  floor  gradually  rises  from  the  water,  and  is  the 
home  of  crabs,  polypi,  sting-rays,  and  other  noisome  creatures 
of  the  deep,  who  find  here  temporary  safety  from  their  larger 
foes.  It  was  a  dangerous  experiment  to  dive  into  this  cave. 
One  of  the  few  who  had  done  it  was  Oponui,  a  minor  chief  of 
Lanai  Island.  He  had  a  daughter  named  Kaala,  a  girl  of  fif- 
teen, who  was  so  beautiful  that  her  admirers  were  counted  by 
the  hundreds. 


A   HAWAIIAN   CAVE-STORY  517 

It  so  happened  that  the  great  monarch  Kamehameha  I. 
paid  a  visit  to  Lanai  about  this  time  (near  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century).  He  was  received  with  enthusiasm,  and 
among  those  who  brought  offerings  of  flowers  was  the  fair 
Kaala.  As  she  scattered  the  flowers  she  was  seen  by  Kaaialii, 
one  of  the  King's  favorite  lieutenants.  "He  was  of  chiefly 
blood  and  bearing,  witli  sinewy  limbs  and  a  handsome  face, 
and  when  he  stopped  to  look  into  the  eyes  of  Kaala  and  tell 
her  that  she  was  beautiful,  she  thought  the  words,  although 
they  had  been  frequently  spoken  to  her  by  others,  had  never 
sounded  so  sweetly  to  her  before.  He  asked  her  for  a  simple 
flower  and  she  twined  a  lei  for  his  neck.  He  asked  her  for  a 
smile,  and  she  looked  up  into  his  face  and  gave  him  her 
heart." 

After  they  had  seen  each  other  a  few  times  the  lieutenant 
went  to  his  chief  and  said  : 

"  I  love  the  beautiful  Kaala,  daughter  of  Oponui.  Give 
her  to  me  for  a  wife." 

"The  girl  is  not  mine  to  give,"  replied  the  King.  "We 
must  be  just.  I  will  send  for  her  father.  Come  to-morrow." 

Oponui  was  not  pleased  when  he  was  brought  before  the 
King  and  heard  his  request.  He  had  once,  in  war,  narrowly 
escaped  death  at  the  hand  of  Kaaialii  and  now  felt  that  he 
would  rather  feed  his  daughter  to  the  sharks  than  give  her 
to  the  man  who  had  sought  his  life.  Still,  as  it  would  have 
been  unwise  to  openly  oppose  the  King's  wishes,  he  pretend- 
ed to  regard  the  proposal  with  favor,  but  regretted  that  his 
daughter  was  already  promised  to  another  man.  He  was, 
however,  willing,  he  added,  to  let  the  girl  go  to  the  victor  in 
a  contest  with  bare  hands  between  the  two  suitors. 

The  rival  suitor  was  Mailou,  a  huge,  muscular  savage 
known  as  the  "bone  breaker."  Kaala  hated  arid  feared  him 
and  had  taken  every  occasion  to  avoid  him  ;  bat  as  her 
father  was  anxious  to  secure  so  strong  an  ally,  his  desire 
finally  had  prevailed  against  her  aversion. 

Kaaialii  was  less  muscular  than  his  rival,  but  he  had 
superior  cunning,  and  thus  it  happened  that  in  the  fierce 
contest  which  followed  he  tripped  up  the  "  bone-breaker," 
seized  his  hair  as  he  fell,  placed  his  knees  against  his  back, 
and  broke  his  spine. 

Breaking  away  from  her  disappointed  father  Kaala  sprang 
through  the  crowd  and  threw  herself  into  the  victor's  arms. 
The  king  placed  their  hands  together  and  said  :  "  You  have 
won  her  nobly.  She  is  now  your  wife.  Take  her  with  yon." 

But  Oponui's  wrath  was  greater  than  before,  and  he  plotted 


518  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

revenge.  On  the  morning  after  the  marriage  lie  visited  Kaala 
and  told  her  that  her  mother  was  dangerously  ill  at  Mahana 
and  wanted  to  see  her  before  she  died.  The  daughter  fol- 
lowed him,  though  her  husband  had  some  misgivings.  Ar- 
riving at  the  seashore,  the  father  told  her,  with  a  wild  glare 
in  his  eyes,  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  hide  her  down 
among  the  gods  of  the  sea  until  the  hated  Kaaialii  had  left 
the  island,  when  he  would  bring  her  home  again.  She 
screamed  and  tried  to  escape,  but  he  gathered  the  struggling 
girl  in  his  arms  and  jumped  with  her  into  the  circling  waters 
above  the  Spouting  Cave.  Sinking  a  fathom  or  so,  they  were 
sucked  upward  into  the  cave,  where  he  placed  her  just  above 
the  reach  of  the  water  among  the  crabs  and  eels,  with  scarcely 
light  enough  to  see  them.  He  offered  to  take  her  back  if  she 
would  promise  to  accept  the  love  of  the  chief  of  Olowalu  and 
allow  Kaaialii  to  see  her  in  the  embrace  of  another.  But  she 
declared  she  would  sooner  perish  in  the  cave.  Having  warned 
her  that  if  she  attempted  to  escape  she  would  surely  be  dashed 
against  the  rocks  and  become  the  food  of  the  sharks,  he  re- 
turned to  the  shore. 

Kaaialii  awaited  his  wife's  return  with  his  heart  aching 
for  her  warm  embrace.  He  recalled  the  sullen  look  of 
Oponui,  and  panic  seized  him.  He  climbed  a  hill  to  watch 
for  her  return  and  his  heart  beat  with  joy  when  he  saw  a  girl 
returning  toward  him.  He  thought  it  was  Kaala,  but  it  was 
Ua,  the  friend  of  Kaala  and  almost  her  equal  in  beauty.  Ua 
told  him  that  his  wife  had  not  been  seen  at  her  mother's,  and 
as  her  father  had  been  seen  taking  her  through  the  forest,  it 
was  feared  she  would  not  be  allowed  to  return. 

With  an  exclamation  of  rage  Kaaialii  started  down  toward 
the  coast.  Here  he  ran  across  Oponui  and  tried  to  seize  him 
by  the  throat  ;  but  Oponui  escaped  and  ran  into  a  temple, 
where  he  was  safe  from  an  attack.  In  a  paroxysm  of  rage  and 
disappointment  Kaaialii  threw  himself  upon  the  ground 
cursing  the  tabu  that  barred  him  from  his  enemy.  His 
friends  took  him  to  his  hut,  where  Ua  sought  to  soothe  and 
comfort  him.  But  he  talked  and  thought  alone  of  Kaala, 
and  after  partaking  hastily  of  food,  started  out  to  find  her. 
Of  every  one  he  met  he  inquired  for  Kaala,  and  called  her 
name  in  the  deep  valleys  and  at  the  hilltops. 

Near  the  sacred  spring  of  Kealia  he  met  a  white-haired 
priest  who  took  pity  on  him  and  told  him  where  Kaala  had 
been  hidden.  "  The  place  is  dark  and  her  heart  is  full  of 
terror.  Hasten  to  her,  but  tarry  not,  or  she  will  be  the  food 
of  the  creatures  of  the  sea." 


A    HAWAIIAN   CAVE-STORY  519 

Thanking  the  priest,  Kaaialii  hastened  to  the  bluff.  With 
the  words  "  Kaala,  I  come  !  "  he  sprang  into  the  whirlpool  and 
disappeared.  The  current  sucked  him  up  and  suddenly  he 
found  himself  in  a  chilly  cave,  feeling  his  way  on  the  slimy 
floor  by  the  dim  light.  Suddenly  a  low  moan  reached  his 
onr.  It  was  the  voice  of  Kaala.  She  was  lying  near  him,  her 
limbs  bruised  with  fruitless  attempts  to  leave  the  cave,  and 
no  longer  strong  enough  to  drive  away  the  crabs  that  were 
feeding  upon  her  quivering  flesh.  He  lifted  her  np  and  bore 
her  toward  the  light.  She  opened  her  eyes  and  whispered, 
"  I  am  dying,  but  I  am  happy,  for  you  are  here."  He  told  her 
he  would  save  her,  but  she  made  no  response,  and  when  he 
put  his  hand  on  her  heart  he  found  she  was  dead. 

For  hours  he  held  her  in  his  arms.  At  length  he  was 
aroused  by  the  splashing  of  water.  He  looked  up  and  there 
was  Ua,  the  gentle  and  beautiful  friend  of  Kaala,  and  behind 
her  the  King  KamehamehR,  Kaaialii  rose  and  pointed  to  the 
body  before  him.  "  I  see,"  said  the  King,  softly,  "  the  girl  is 
dead.  She  could  have  no  better  burial-place.  Come,  Kaaialii, 
let  us  leave  it."  But  Kaaialii  did  not  move.  For  the  first 
time  in  his  life  he  refused  to  obey  his  King.  "What  !  would 
you  remain  here  ?  "  said  the  monarch.  "  Would  you  throw 
your  life  away  for  a  girl  ?  There  are  others  as  fair.  Here  is 
Ua  ;  she  shall  be  your  wife,  and  I  will  give  you  the  valley  of 
Palawai.  Come,  let  us  leave  at  once  lest  some  angry  god 
close  the  entrance  against  us  ! " 

"Great  chief,"  replied  Kaaialii,  "you  have  always  been 
kind  and  generous  to  me,  and  never  more  so  than  now.  But 
hear  me  ;  my  life  and  strength  are  gone.  Kaala  was  my  life, 
and  she  is  dead.  How  can  I  live  without  her  ?  You  are  my 
chief.  You  have  asked  me  to  leave  this  place  and  live.  It 
is  the  first  request  of  yours  I  have  ever  disobeyed.  It  shall 
be  the  last ! "  Then  seizing  a  stone,  with  a  swift,  strong  blow 
he  crushed  in  brow  and  brain,  and  fell  dead  upon  the  body  of 
Kaala. 

A  wail  of  anguish  went  up  from  Ua.  Kamehameha  spoke 
not,  moved  not.  Long  he  gazed  upon  the  bodies  before  him  ; 
and  his  eye  was  moist  and  his  strong  lips  quivered  as,  turning 
away  at  last,  he  said  :  "He  loved  her  indeed  !" 

Wrapped  in  Jcapa,  the  bodies  were  laid  side  by  side  and 
left  in  the  cavern ;  and  there  to-day  may  be  seen  the  bones 
of  Kaala,  the  flower  of  Lanai,  and  of  Kaaialii,  her  knightly 
lover,  by  such  as  dare  seek  the  passage  to  them  through  the 
whirlpool  of  Palikaholo. 


520  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 


IS   THIS    ROMANTIC    LOVE  ? 

These  two  Polynesian  cave-stories  are  of  interest  from  sev- 
eral points  of  view.  In  Waitz-Gerland  (VI.,  125),  the  Ton- 
gan  tale  is  referred  to  as  "  a  very  romantic  love-story,"  and  i'f 
the  author  had  known  the  Hawaiian  story  he  would  have  had 
even  more  reason  to  call  it  romantic.  But  is  either  of  these 
tales  a  story  of  romantic  love  ?  Is  there  evidence  in  them  of 
anything  but  strong  selfish  passion  or  eagerness  to  possess  one 
of  the  other  sex  ?  Is  there  any  trace  of  the  higher  phases 
of  love— of  unselfish  attachment,  sympathy,  adoration,  as  of 
a  superior  being,  purity,  gallantry,  self-sacrifice  ?  Not  one. 
The  Hawaiian  Kaaialii  does  indeed  smash  his  own  skull  when 
he  finds  his  bride  is  dead.  But  that  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  sacrificing  himself  to  save  or  please  her.  We  have  seen, 
too,  on  how  slight  a  provocation  these  islanders  will  com- 
mit suicide,  an  act  which  proves  a  weak  intellect  rather  than 
strong  feeling.  A  man  capable  of  feeling  true  love  would 
have  brains  enough  to  restrain  himself  from  committing  such 
a  silly  and  useless  act  in  a  fit  of  disappointment. 

There  is  every  reason  to  believe,  moreover,  that  these 
stories  have  been  embroidered  by  the  narrators.  In  the  vast 
majority  of  cases  the  men  who  have  had  an  opportunity  to 
note  down  primitive  love-stories  unfortunately  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  disguise  their  native  flavor  with  European  sauce  in 
order  to  make  them  more  palatable  to  the  general  public. 
This  makes  them  interesting  stories,  made  realistic  by  the 
use  of  local  color,  but  utterly  mars  them  for  the  scien- 
tific epicure  who  often  relishes  most  what  is  caviare  to  the 
general.  Take  that  Hawaiian  story.  It  is  supposed  to  be 
told  by  King  Kalakaua  himself.  At  least,  the  book  of 
Legend  and  Myths  has  ' '  By  His  Hawaiian  Majesty "  on 
the  title  page.  Beneath  those  words  we  read  that  the  book 
was  edited  by  the  Hon.  K.  M.  Daggett ;  and  in  the  preface 
acknowledgment  is  made  to  as  many  as  eight  persons  "  for 
material  in  the  compilation  of  many  of  the  legends  embraced 
in  this  volume."  Thus  there  are  ten  cooks,  and  the  ques- 


INTERCEPTED    LOVE-LETTERS  525 

and  given  an  apartment  provided  with  every  luxury.  She 
fell  asleep  from  fatigue,  and  when  she  awoke  and  realized 
where  she  was  it  was  not  without  a  certain  feeling  of  pride 
that  she  reflected  that  her  beauty  had  led  the  famous  and 
mighty  Kaupeepee  to  abduct  her. 

After  partaking  of  a  hearty  breakfast,  she  sent  for  him  and 
he  came  promptly.  "  What  can  I  do  for  you  ?"  he  asked. 
"  Liberate  me  I"  was  her  answer.  "  Return  me  to  my  chil- 
dren!" "Impossible!"  was  the  firm  reply.  "Then  kill 
me,"  she  exclaimed.  The  chief  now  told  her  how  he  had  left 
home  specially  to  see  her,  and  found  her  the  most  beautiful 
woman  in  Hawaii.  He  had  risked  his  life  to  get  her.  "  You 
are  my  prisoner/'  he  said,  "  but  not  more  than  I  am  yours. 
You  shall  leave  Haupu  only  when  its  walls  shall  have  been 
battered  down  and  I  lie  dead  among  the  ruins." 

Hina  saw  that  resistance  was  useless.  He  had  soothed  her 
with  llattery ;  he  was  a  great  noble  ;  he  was  gentle  though 
brave.  "  How  strangely  pleasant  are  his  words  and  voice," 
she  said  to  herself.  "  No  one  ever  spoke  so  to  me  before.  I 
could  have  listened  longer."  After  that  she  hearkened  for 
his  footsteps  and  soon  accepted  him  as  her  lover  and  spouse. 

For  seventeen  years  she  remained  a  willing  prisoner.  In 
the  meantime  her  two  sons  by  her  first  husband  had  grown 
up  ;  they  ascertained  where  their  mother  was,  demanded  her 
release,  and  on  refusal  waged  a  terrible  war  which  at  last 
ended  in  the  death  of  Kaupeepee  and  the  destruction  of  his 
walls. 


INTERCEPTED    LOVE-LETTERS 

The  Rev.  H.  T.  Cheever  prints  in  his  book  on  the  Sand- 
wich Islands  (226-28)  a  few  amusing  specimens  of  the  love- 
letters  exchanged  between  the  native  lads  of  the  Lahainahma 
Seminary  and  certain  lasses  of  Lahaina.  The  following  ones 
were  intercepted  by  the  missionaries.  The  first  was  penned 
by  a  girl  : 

"  Love  to  you,  who  speakest  sweetly,  whom  I  did  kiss.  My 
warm  affections  go  out  to  you  with  your  love.  My  mind  is 
oppressed  in  consequence  of  not  having  seen  you  these  times. 
Much  affection  for  thee  dwelling  there  where  the  sun  causeth 
the  head  to  ache.  Pity  for  thee  in  returning  to  your  house, 
destitute  as  you  supposed.  I  and  she  went  to  the  place  where 
we  had  sat  in  the  meeting-house,  and  said  she,  Let  us  weep. 
So  we  two  wept  for  you,  and  we  conversed  about  you. 


526  ISLAND   LOVE   ON  THE   PACIFIC 

"  We  went  to  bathe  in  the  bread-fruit  yard  ;  the  wind  blew 
softly  from  Lahainaluna,  and  your  image  came  down  with  it. 
We  wept  for  you.  Thou  only  art  our  food  when  we  are  hun- 
gry. We  are  satisfied  with  your  love. 

' ( It  is  better  to  conceal  this  ;  and  lest  dogs  should  prowl 
after  it,  and  it  should  be  found  out,  when  you  have  read  this 
letter,  tear  it  up." 

The  next  letter  is  from  one  of  the  boys  to  a  girl : 

"  Love  to  thee,  thou  daughter  of  the  Pandanus  of  Lanahuli. 
Thou  Mna  liina,  which  declarest  the  divisions  of  the  winds.1 
Thou  cloudless  sun  of  the  noon.  Thou  most  precious  of  the 
daughters  of  the  earth.  Thou  beauty  of  the  clear  nights  of 
Lehua.  Thou  refreshing  fountain  of  Keipi.  Love  to  thee, 
0  Pomare,  thou  royal  woman  of  the  Pacific  here.  Thou  art 
glorious  with  ribbons  flying  gracefully  in  the  gentle  breeze  of 
Puna.  Where  art  thou,  my  beloved,  who  art  anointed  with 
the  fragrance  of  glory  ?  Much  love  to  thee,  who  dost  draw 
out  my  soul  as  thou  dwellest  in  the  shady  bread-fruits  of  La- 
haina.  0  thou  who  art  joined  to  my  affection,  who  art  knit 
to  me  in  the  hot  days  of  Lahainaluna  ! 

"  Hark  !  When  I  returned  great  was  my  love.  I  was 
overwhelmed  with  love  like  one  drowning.  When  I  lay  down 
to  sleep  I  could  not  sleep  ;  my  mind  floated  after  thee.  Like 
the  strong  south  wind  of  Lahaina,  such  is  the  strength  of 
my  love  to  thee,  when  it  comes.  Hear  me  ;  at  the  time  the 
bell  rings  for  meeting,  on  Wednesday,  great  was  my  love  to 
you.  I  dropped  my  hoe  and  ran  away  from  my  work.  I  se- 
cretly ran  to  the  stream  of  water,  and  there  I  wept  for  my 
love  to  -thee.  Hearken,  my  love  resembles  the  cold  water  far 
inland.  Forsake  not  thou  this  our  love.  Keep  it  quietly, 
as  I  do  keep  it  quietly  here." 

Here  is  another  from  one  of  the  students  in  the  missionary 
school  : 

"  Love  to  thee,  by  reason  of  whom  my  heart  sleeps  not 
night  nor  day,  all  the  days  of  my  dwelling  here.  0  thou 
beautiful  one,  for  whom  my  love  shall  never  cease.  Here  also 
is  this — at  the  time  I  heard  you  were  going  to  Waihekee,  I 
was  enveloped  in  great  love.  And  when  I  had  heard  you 
had  really  gone,  great  was  my  regret  for  you,  and  exceeding 
great  my  love.  My  appearance  was  like  a  sick  person  who 
cannot  answer  when  spoken  to.  I  would  not  go  down  to  the 

1  Supposed  to  mean  a  beautiful  flower  that  grows  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains, 
where  sea  and  land  breezes  meet. 


INTERCEPTED   LOVE-LETTERS  527 

sea  again,  because  I  supposed  you  had  not  returned.  I  feared 
lest  I  should  see  all  the  places  where  you  and  1  conversed  to- 
gether, and  walked  together,  and  I  should  fall  in  the  streets 
on  account  of  the  greatness  of  my  love  to  you.  I  however 
did  go  down,  and  I  was  continually  longing  with  love  to  you. 
Your  father  said  to  me,  Won't  you  eat  with  us  ?  I  refused, 
saying  I  was  full.  But  the  truth  was  I  had  eaten  nothing. 
My  great  love  to  you,  that  was  the  thing  which  could  alone 

satisfy  me.    Presently,  however,  I  went  to  the  place  of  K , 

and  there  I  heard  you  had  arrived.  I  was  a  little  refreshed 
by  hearing  this.  But  my  eyes  stiirhung  down.  I  longed  to 
see  you,  but  could  not  find  you,  though  I  waited  till  dark. 
Now,  while  I  am  writing,  my  tears  are  dropping  down  for 
you  ;  now  my  tears  are  my  friends,  and  my  affection  to  you, 
0  thou  who  wilt  forever  be  loved.  Here,  also  is  this :  con- 
sent thou  to  my  desire,  and  write  me,  that  I  may  know  your 
love.  My  love  to  you  is  great,  thou  splendid  flower  of  Lana- 
kahula."' 

Cheever  seems  to  accept  these  letters  as  proof  that  love  is 
universal,  and  everywhere  the  same.  He  overlooks  several 
important  considerations.  Were  these  letters  penned  by  na- 
tives or  by  half-castes,  with  foreign  blood  in  their  veins  and 
inherited  capacities  of  feeling  ?  Unless  we  know  that,  no  sci- 
entific deduction  is  allowable.  These  natives  are  very  imita- 
tive. They  learn  our  music  easily  and  rapidly,  and  with  the 
art  of  writing  and  reading  they  readily  acquire  our  amorous 
phrases.  A  certain  Biblical  tone,  suggesting  the  Canticles,  is 
noticeable.  The  word  ' '  heart "  is  used  in  a  way  foreign  to 
Polynesian  thought,  and  apart  from  these  details,  is  there 
anything  in  these  letters  that  goes  beyond  selfish  longing  and 
craving  for  enjoyment,?  Is  there  anything  in  them  that  may 
not  be  summed  up  in  the  language  of  appetite  :  "Thou  art 
very  desirable — I  desire  thee — I  grieve,  and  weep,  and  refuse 
to  eat,  because  I  cannot  possess  thee  now  ?  "  Such  longing, 
so  intense  and  fiery 1  that  it  seems  as  if  all  the  waters  of  the 
ocean  could  not  quench  it,  constitutes  a  phase  of  all  amorous 
passion,  from  the  lowest  up  to  the  highest.  Philosophers 
have,  indeed,  disputed  as  to  which  is  the  more  violent  and  ir- 

1  According  to  Ersldne  (50)  when  a  Samoan  felt  a  violent  passion  for  another 
he  would  brand  his  arm,  to  symbolize  his  ardor.  (Waitz-Gerland,  VI.,  125.) 


528  ISLAND   LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

repressible,  animal  passion  or  sentimental   love.      Schopen- 
hauer believed  the  latter.  Lichtenberg  the  former,1 


MAORIS   OF   NEW   ZEALAND 

Hawaii  has  brought  us  quite  near  the  coast  of  America, 
whose  red  men  will  form  the  subject  of  our  next  chapter. 
But,  before  passing  on  to  the  Indians,  we  must  once  more  re- 
turn to  the  neighborhood'  of  Australia,  to  the  island  of  New 
Zealand,  which  offers  some  points  of  great  interest  to  a  stu- 
dent of  love  and  a  collector  of  love-stories.  We  have  seen 
that  the  islands  of  Torres  Straits,  north  of  Australia,  have 
natives  and  customs  utterly  unlike  those  of  Australia.  We 
shall  now  see  that  south  of  Australia,  too,  there  is  an  island 
(or  rather  two  islands),  whose  inhabitants  are  utterly  un-Aus- 
tralian  in  manners  and  customs,  as  well  as  in  origin.  The 
Maoris  (that  is,  natives)  of  New  Zealand  have  traditions  that 
their  ancestors  came  from  Hawaii  (Hawaiki),  disputes  about 
land  having  induced  them  to  emigrate.  They  may  have  done 
so  by  way  of  other  islands,  on  some  of  their  large  canoes,  aided 
by  the  trade  winds.2  The  Maoris  are  certainly  Polynesians, 
and  they  resemble  Hawaiians  and  Tongans  in  many  respects. 
Their  ferocity  and  cannibalism  put  them  on  a  level  with  Fi- 
jians,  making  them  a  terror  to  navigators,  while  in  some  other 
respects/ they  appear  to  have  been  somewhat  superior  to  most 
of  their  Polynesian  cousins,  the  Tongans  excepted.  The 
Maoris  and  Tongans  best  bear  out  Waitz-Gerland's  assertion 
that  "  the  Polynesians  rank  intellectually  considerably  higher 
than  all  other  uncivilized  peoples/'  The  same  authorities  are 
charmed  by  the  romantic  love-stories  of  the  Maoris,  and  they 
certainly  are  charming  and  romantic.  Sir  George  Grey's 
Polynesian  Mythology  contains  four  of  these  stories,  of  which 
I  will  give  condensed  versions,  taking  care,  as  usual,  to  pre- 
serve all  pertinent  details  and  intimations  of  higher  qualities. 

1  See  Schopenhauer's  Gesprache  (Grisebach),  1898,  p  40,  and  the  essay  on 
love,  in  Lichtenberg's  Au&gewcihlte  8chriften  (Reclam).  Lichtenberg  seems, 
indeed,  to  have  doubted  whether  anything  else  than  sensual  love  actually  exists. 

"  It  is  eaid  that,  under  favorable  circumstances,  a  distance  of  3,000  miles  might 
thus  be  covered  in  a  month. 


THE   MAIDEN   OF   ROTORUA  529 


THE   MAIDEN   OF    ROTORUA 

There  was  a  girl  of  high  rank  named  Hine-Moa.  She  was 
of  rare  beauty,  and  was  so  prized  by  her  family  that  they 
would  not  betroth  her  to  anyone.  Such  fame  attended  her 
beauty  and  rank  that  many  of  the  men  wanted  her;  among 
them  a  chief  named  Tutanekai  and  his  elder  brothers. 

Tutauekai  had  built  an  elevated  balcony  where,  with  his 
friend  Tiki,  he  used  to  play  the  horn  and  the  pipe  at  night. 
On  calm  nights  the  music  was  wafted  to  the  village  and 
reached  the  ears  of  the  beautiful  Hine-Moa,  whose  heart  was 
gladdened  by  it,  and  who  said  to  herself,  "Ah,  that  is  the 
music  of  Tutanekai  which  I  hear." 

She  and  Tutanekai  had  met  each  other  on  those  occasions 
when  all  the  people  of  Rotorua  come  together.  In  those  great 
assemblies  they  had  often  glanced  each  at  the  other,  to  the 
heart  of  each  of  them  the  other  appeared  pleasing,  and  worthy 
of  love,  so  that  in  the  breast  of  each  there  grew  up  a  secret 
passion  for  the  other.  Nevertheless,  Tutanekai  could  not  tell 
whether  he  might  venture  to  approach  Hine-Moa  to  take  her 
hand,  to  see  would  she  press  his  in  return,  because,  said  he, 
"  Perhaps  I  may  be  by  no  means  agreeable  to  her ;"  on  the 
other  hand,  Hine-Moa's  heart  said  to  her,  "  If  you  send  one 
of  your  female  friends  to  tell  him  of  your  love,  perchance  he 
will  not  be  pleased  with  you." 

However,  after  they  had  thus  met  for  many,  many  days, 
and  had  long  fondly  glanced  at  each  other,  Tutanekai  sent 
a  messenger  to  Hine-Moa,  to  tell  of  his  love  ;  and  when 
Hine-Moa  had  seen  the  messenger,  she  said,  "  Eh-hu  !  have 
we  then  each  loved  alike  ?  " 

Some  time  after  this,  a  dispute  arose  among  the  brothers 
as  to  which  of  them  the  girl  loved.  Each  one  claimed  that 
he  had  pressed  the  hand  of  Hine-Moa  and  that  she  had 
pressed  his  in  return.  But  the  elder  brothers  sneered  at 
Tutauekai's  claims  (for  he  was  an  illegitimate  son),  saying, 
"  Do  you  think  she  would  take  any  notice  of  such  a  low- 
born fellow  as  you  ?  "  But  in  reality  Tutanekai  had  already 
arranged  for  an  elopement  with  the  girl,  and  when  she  asked, 
"  What  shall  be  the  sign  by  which  I  shall  know  that  I  should 
then  run  to  you  ?  "  he  said  to  her,  "  A  trumpet  will  be  heard 
sounding  every  night,  it  will  be  I  who  sound  it,  beloved- 
paddle  then  your  canoe  to  that  place." 

Now  always  about  the  middle  of  the  night  Tutanekai  and 
his  friend  went  up  into  their  balcony  and  played.  Hine- 
Moa  heard  them  and  vastly  desired  to  paddle  over  in  her 


530  ISLAND    LOVE    ON    THE   PACIFIC 

canoe  ;  but  her  friends,  suspecting  something,  had  all  the 
canoes  on  the  shore  of  the  lake.  At  last,  one  evening, 
she  again  heard  the  horn  of  Tutanekai,  and  the  young  and 
beautiful  chief tainess  felt  as  if  an  earthquake  shook  her  to 
make  her  go  to  the  beloved  of  her  heart.  At  last  she 
thought,  perhaps  I  might  be  able  to  swim  across.  So  she 
took  six  large,  dry,  empty  gourds  as  floats,  lest  she  should 
sink  in  the  water,  threw  off  her  clothes,  and  plunged  into 
the  water.  It  was  dark,  and  her  only  guide  was  the  sound 
of  her  lover's  music.  Whenever  her  limbs  became  tired  she 
rested,  the  gourds  keeping  her  afloat.  At  last  she  reached 
the  island  on  which  her  lover  dwelt.  Near  the  shore  there 
was  a  hot  spring,  into  which  she  plunged,  partly  to  warm  her 
trembling  body,  and  partly  also,  perhaps,  from  modesty,  at 
the  thoughts  of  meeting  Tutanekai. 

Whilst  the  maiden  was  thus  warming  herself  in  the  hot 
spring,  Tutanekai  happened  to  feel  thirsty  and  sent  his  ser- 
vant to  fetch  him  a  calabash  of  water.  The  servant  came  to 
dip  it  from  the  lake  near  where  the  girl  was  hiding.  She 
called  out  to  him  in  a  gruff  voice,  like  that  of  a  man,  asking 
him  for  some  to  drink,  and  he  gave  her  the  calabash,  which 
she  purposely  threw  down  and  broke.  The  servant  went 
back  for  another  calabash  and  again  she  broke  it  in  the  same 
way.  The  servant  returned  and  told  his  master  that  a  man 
in  the  hot  spring  had  broken  all  his  calabashes.  "  How  did 
the  rascal  dare  to  break  my  calabashes  ? "  exclaimed  the 
young  man.  "  Why,  I  shall  die  of  rage." 

He  threw  on  some  clothes,  seized  his  club,  and  hurried  to 
the  hot  spring,  calling  out  "  Where's  that  fellow  who  broke 
my  calabashes  ?  "  And  Hine-Moa  knew  the  voice,  and  the 
sound  of  it  was  that  of  the  beloved  of  her  heart ;  and  she  hid 
herself  under  the  overhanging  rocks  of  the  hot  spring  ;  but 
her  hiding  was  hardly  a  real  hiding,  but  rather  a  bashful 
concealing  of  herself  from  Tutanekai,  that  he  might  not  find 
her  at  once,  but  only  after  trouble  and  careful  searching  for 
her  ;  so  he  went  feeling  about  along  the  banks  of  the  hot 
spring,  searching  everywhere,  whilst  she  lay  coyly  hid  under 
the  ledges  of  the  rock,  peeping  out,  wondering  when  she 
would  be  found.  At  last  he  caught  hold  of  a  hand,  and 
cried  out  "  Hollo,  who's  this  ?"  And  Hine-Moa  answered, 
"  It's  I,  Tutanekai  ; "  And  he  said,  "  But  who  are  you  ?— 
who's  I  ?"  Then  she  spoke  louder  and  said,  "It's  I,  'tis 
Hine-Moa."  And  he  said  "  Ho  !  ho  !  ho  !  can  such  in  very 
truth  be  the  case  ?  Let  us  two  then  go  to  the  house."  And 
she  answered,  "  Yes  ; "  and  she  rose  up  in  the  water  as  beau- 


THE   MAN   ON   THE   TREE  531 

tiful  as  the  wild  white  hawk,  and  stepped  upon  the  edge  of 
the  bath  as  the  shy  white  crane  ;  and  he  threw  garments  over 
her  and  took  her,  and  they  proceeded  to  his  house,  and  re- 
posed there  ;  and  thenceforth,  according  to  the  ancient  laws 
of  the  Maori,  they  were  man  and  wife. 


THE   MAN   ON  THE   TKEE 

A  young  man  named  Maru-tuahu  left  home  in  quest  of 
his  father,  who  had  abandoned  his  mother  before  the  son  was 
born  because  he  had  been  unjustly  accused  of  stealing  sweet 
potatoes  from  another  chief.  Maru-tuahu  took  along  a 
slave,  and  they  carried  with  them  a  spear  for  killing  birds  for 
food  on  the  journey  through  the  forest.  One  morning,  after 
they  had  been  on  the  way  a  month,  he  happened  to  be  up  in  a 
forest  tree  when  two  young  girls,  daughters  of  a  chief,  came 
along.  They  saw  the  slave  sitting  at  the  root  of  the  tree, 
and  sportively  contested  with  each  other  whose  slave  he 
should  be. 

All  this  time  Maru-tuahu  was  peeping  down  at  the  two 
girls  from  the  top  of  the  tree  ;  and  they  asked  the  slave, 
saying,  "Where  is  your  master?"  He  answered,  "I  have 
no  master  but  him/'  Then  the  girls  looked  about,  and  there 
was  a  cloak  lying  on  the  ground,  and  a  heap  of  dead  birds  , 
and  they  kept  on  asking,  "  Where  is  he  ? "  but  it  was  not 
long  before  a  flock  of  Tuis  settled  on  the  tree  where  Maru- 
tnahu  was  sitting  ;  he  speared  at  them  and  struck  one  of  the 
birds,  which  made  the  tree  ring  with  its  cries  ;  the  girls 
heard  it,  and  looking  up,  the  youngest  saw  the  young  chief 
sitting  in  the  top  boughs  of  the  tree ;  and  she  at  once  called 
up  to  him,  "  Ah  !  you  shall  be  my  husban<}  ;  "  but  the  eld- 
est sister  exclaimed,  "  You  shall  be  mine/'  and  they  began 
jesting  and  disputing  between  themselves  which  should  have 
him  for  a  husband,  for  he  was  a  very  handsome  young  man. 

Then  the  two  girls  called  up  to  him  to  come  down  from 
the  tree,  and  down  he  came,  and  dropped  upon  the  ground, 
and  pressed  his  nose  against  the  nose  of  each  of  the  young 
girls.  They  then  asked  him  to  come  to  their  village  with 
them;  to  which  he  consented,  but  said,  "You  two  go  on 
ahead,  and  leave  me  and  my  slave,  and  we  will  follow  you 
presently;"  and  the  girls  said,  "Very  well,  do  you  come 
after  us."  Maru-tuahu  then  told  his  slave  to  make  a  pres- 
ent to  the  girls  of  the  food  they  had  collected,  and  he  gave 
them  two  bark  baskets  of  pigeons,  preserved  in  their  own  fat, 
and  they  went  off  to  their  village  with  these. 


532  ISLAND   LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 

As  soon  as  the  girls  were  gone,  Maru-tuahu  went  to  a 
stream,  washed  his  hair,  and  combed  it  carefully,  tied  it  in  a 
knot,  and  stuck  fifty  red  Kaka  feathers  and  other  plumes  in 
his  head,  till  he  looked  as  handsome  as  the  large-crested  cor- 
morant. The  young  girls  soon  came  back  from  the  village  to 
meet  their  so-called  husband,  arid  when  they  saw  him  in  his 
new  head-dress  and  attired  in  a  chief's  cloak  they  felt  deeply 
in  love  with  him  and  they  said,  "Come  along  to  our  father's 
village  with  us."  On  the  way  they  found  out  from  the 
slave  that  his  master  was  the  far-famed  Maru-tuahu,  and 
they  replied  :  "  Dear,  dear,  we  had  not  the  least  idea  that  it 
was  lie."  Then  they  ran  off  to  tell  his  father  (for  this  was 
the  place  where  his  father  had  gone  and  married  again)  that 
lie  was  coming.  The  son  was  warmly  welcomed.  All  the 
young  girls  ran  outside,  waved  the  corners  of  their  cloaks  and 
cried  out,  "  Welcome,  welcome,  make  haste/' 

Then  there  was  a  great  feast,  at  which  ten  dogs  were 
eaten.  But  all  this  time  the  two  girls  were  quarrelling  with 
each  other  as  to  which  of  them  should  have  the  young  chief 
for  a  husband.  The  elder  girl  was  plain,  but  thought  her- 
self'pretty,  and  could  not  see  the  least  reason  why  he  should 
be  frightened  at  her  ;  but  Maru-tuahu  did  not  like  her  on 
account  of  her  plainness,  and  her  pretty  sister  kept  him  as 
her  husband. 

LOVE   IN   A    FORTRESS 

A  chief  named  Rangirarunga  had  a  daughter  so  celebrated 
for  her  beauty  that  the  fame  of  it  had  reached  all  parts  of 
these  islands.  A  young  hero  named  Takarangi  also  heard  of 
her  beauty,  and  it  may  be  that  his  heart  sometimes  dwelt  long- 
on  the  thoughts  of  such  loveliness.  They  belonged  to  differ- 
ent tribes,  and  war  broke  out  between  them,  during  which 
the  fortress  'of  the  girl's  father  was  besieged.  Soon  the  in- 
habitants were  near  dying  from  want  of  food  and  water.  At 
last  the  old  chief  Rangirarunga,  overcome  by  thirst,  stood  on 
the  top  of  the  defences  and  cried  out  to  the  enemy  :  "I  pray 
you  to  give  me  one  drop  of  water."  Some  were  willing,  and 
got  calabashes  of  water,  but  others  were  angry  thereat  and 
broke  them  in  their  hands.  The  old  chief  then  appealed  to 
the  leader  of  the  enemy,  who  was  Takarangi,  and  asked  him 
if  he  could  calm  the  wrath  of  these  fierce  men.  Takarangi 
replied  :  "  This  arm  of  mine  is  one  which  no  dog  dares  to 
bite."  But  what  he  was  really  thinking  was,  "That  dying 
old  man  is  the  father  of  Rau-mahora,  of  that  lovely  maid. 
Ah,  how  should  I  grieve  if  one  so  young  and  innocent  should 


STRATAGEM   OF   AN   ELOPEMENT  533 

die  tormented  with  the  want  of  water."  Then  he  filled  a 
calabash  with  fresh  cool  water,  and  the  fierce  warriors  looked 
on  in  wonder  and  silence  while  he  carried  it  to  the  old  man 
and  his  daughter.  They  drank,  both  of  them,  and  Taka- 
rangi  gazed  eagerly  at  the  young  girl,  and  she  too  looked 
eagerly  at  Takarangi ;  long  time  gazed  they  each  one  at  the 
other  ;  and  as  the  warriors  of  the  army  of  Takarangi  looked 
on,  lo,  he  had  climbed  up  and  was  sitting  at  the  young 
maiden's  side  ;  and  they  said,  amongst  themselves,  "  0  com- 
rades, our  lord  Takarangi  loves  war,  but  one  would  think  he 
likes  Rau-mahora  almost  as  well." 

At  last  a  sudden  thought  struck  the  heart  of  the  aged 
chief  ;  so  he  said  to  his  daughter,  "  0  my  child,  would  it  be 
pleasing  to  you  to  have  this  young  chief  for  a  husband  ?  " 
And  the  young  girl  said,  "I  like  him."  Then  the  old  man 
consented  that  his  daughter  should  be  given  as  a  bride  to 
Takarangi,  and  he  took  her  as  his  wife.  Thence  was  that 
war  brought  to  an  end,  and  the  army  of  Takarangi  dispersed. 


STRATAGEM    OF   Atf    ELOPEMENT 

Two  tribes  had  long  been  at  war,  but  as  neither  gained  a 
permanent  victory  peace  was  at  last  concluded.  Then  one 
day  the  chief  Te  Ponga,  with  some  of  his  followers,  ap- 
proached the  fortress  of  their  former  enemies.  They  were 
warmly  welcomed,  ovens  were  heated,  food  cooked,  served  in 
baskets  and  distributed.  But  the  visitors  did  not  eat  much, 
in  order  that  their  waists  might  be  slim  when  they  stood  up 
in  the  ranks  of  the  dancers,  and  that  they  might  look  as 
slight  as  if  their  waists  were  almost  severed  in  two. 

As  soon  as  it  began  to  get  dark  the  villagers  danced,  and 
whilst  they  sprang  nimbly  about,  Puhihuia,  the  young 
daughter  of  the  village  chief,  watched  them  till  her  time  came 
to  enter  the  ranks.  She  performed  her  part  beautifully  ;  her 
full-orbed  eyes  seemed  clear  and  brilliant  as  the  full  moon 
rising  in  the  horizon,  and  while  the  strangers  looked  at  the 
young  girl  they  all  were  quite  overpowered  with  her  beauty  ; 
and  Te  Ponga,  their  young  chief,  felt  his  heart  grow  wild 
with  emotion  when  he  saw  so  much  loveliness  before  him. 

Then  up  sprang  the  strangers  to  dance  in  their  turn.  Te 
Ponga  waited  his  opportunity,  and  when  the  time  came, 
danced  so  beautifully  that  the  people  of  the  village  were  sur- 
prised at  his  agility  and  grace,  and  as  for  the  young  girl, 
Puhihuia,  her  heart  conceived  a  warm  passion  for  Te  Ponga. 

When  the  dance  was  concluded,  everyone,  overcome  with 


534  ISLAND    LOVE   ON    THE    PACIFIC 

weariness,  went  to  sleep — all  except  Te  Ponga,  who  lay  toss- 
ing from  side  to  side,  unable  to  sleep,  from  his  great  love 
for  the  maiden,  and  devising  scheme  after  scheme  by  which 
he  might  have  an  opportunity  of  conversing  with  her  alone. 
At  last  he  decided  to  carry  out  a  plan  suggested  by  his  ser- 
vant. The  next  night,  when  he  had  retired  in  the  chief's 
house,  he  called  this  servant  to  fetch  him  some  water  ;  but 
the  servant,  following  out  the  plot,  had  concealed  himself  and 
refused  to  respond.  Then  the  chief  said  to  his  daughter, 
"  My  child,  run  and  fetch  some  water  for  our  guest/'  The 
maiden  rose,  and  taking  a  calabash,  went  off  to  fetch  some 
water,  and  no  sooner  did  Te  Ponga  see  her  start  off  than  he 
too  arose  and  went  out,  feigning  to  be  angry  with  his  slave 
and  going  to  give  him  a  beating  ;  but  as  soon  as  he  was  out 
of  the  house  he  went  straight  off  after  the  girl.  He  did  not 
well  know  the  path  to  the  well,  but  was  guided  by  the  voice 
of  the  maiden,  who  sang  merrily  as  she  went  along. 

When  she  arrived  at  the  fountain  she  heard  someone 
behind  her,  and  turning  suddenly  around  she  beheld  the 
young  chief.  Astonished,  she  asked,  "  What  can  have 
brought  you  here?"  He  answered,  "  I  came  here  for  a 
draught  of  water/'  But  the  girl  replied,  "  Ha,  indeed  ! 
Did  not  I  come  here  to  draw  water  for  you  ?  Could  not  you 
have  remained  at  my  father's  house  until  I  brought  the  water 
for  you?"  Then  Te  Ponga  answered,  "  You  are  the  water 
that  I  thirsted  for."  And  as  the  maiden  listened  to  his 
words,  she  thought  within  herself,  "  He,  then,  has  fallen  in 
love  with  me,"  and  she  sat  down,  and  he  placed  himself  by 
her  side,  and  they  conversed  together,  and  to  each  of  them 
the  words  of  the  other  seemed  most  pleasant  and  engaging. 
Before  they  separated  they  arranged  a  time  when  they  might 
escape  together,  and  then  they  returned  to  the  village. 

When  the  time  came  for  Te  Ponga  to  leave  his  host  he  di- 
rected some  dozen  men  of  his  to  go  to  the  landing-place  in  the 
harbor,  prepare  one  large  canoe  in  which  he  and  his  followers 
might  escape,  and  then  to  take  the  other  canoes  and  cut  the 
lashings  which  made  the  top  sides  fast  to  the  hulls.  The 
next  morning  he  announced  that  he  must  return  to  his  own 
country.  The  chief  and  his  men  accompanied  him  part  of 
the  way  to  the  harbor.  Puhihuia  and  the  other  girls  had 
stolen  a  little  way  along  the  road,  laughing  and  joking  with 
the  visitors.  The  chief,  seeing  his  daughter  going  on  after 
he  had  turned  back,  called  out,  "  Children,  children,  come 
back  here  !"  Then  the  other  girls  stopped  and  ran  back 
toward  the  village,  but  as  to  Puhihuia,  her  heart  beat  but  to 


STRATAGEM   OF   AN   ELOPEMENT  535 

the  one  thought  of  escaping  with  her  beloved  Te  Ponga.  So 
she  began  to  run.  Te  Ponga  and  his  men  joined  in  the  swift 
flight,  and  as  soon  as  they  had  reached  the  water  they  jumped 
into  their  canoe,  seized  their  paddles  and  shot  away,  swift  as 
a  dart  from  a  string.  "When  the  pursuing  villagers  arrived 
at  the  beach  they  laid  hold  of  another  canoe,  but  found  that 
the  lashings  of  all  had  been  cut,  so  that  pursuit  was  impossi- 
ble. Thus  the  party  that  had  come  to  make  peace  returned 
joyfully  to  their  own  country,  with  the  enemy's  young  chief- 
tainess,  while  their  foes  stood  like  fools  upon  the  shore, 
stamping  with  rage  and  threatening  them  in  vain. 

These  stories  are  undoubtedly  romantic  ;  but  again  I  ask, 
are  they  stories  of  romantic  love  ?  There  is  romance  and 
quaint  local  color  in  the  feat  of  the  girl  who,  reversing  the 
story  of  Hero  and  Leander,  swam  over  to  her  lover ;  in  the 
wooing  of  the  two  girls  proposing  to  an  unseen  man  up  a 
tree ;  in  the  action  of  the  chief  who  saved  the  beautiful  girl  and 
her  father  from  dying  of  thirst,  and  acted  so  that  his  men  came 
to  the  conclusion  he  must  love  her  "almost  as  well"  as  war  ; 
in  the  slyly  planned  elopement  of  Te  Ponga.  But  there  is 
nothing  to  indicate  the  quality  of  the  love — to  show  an  (( illu- 
mination of  the  senses  by  the  soul,"  or  a  single  altruistic  trait. 
Even  such  touches  of  egoistic  sentimentality  as  the  phrase 
"  To  the  heart  of  each  of  them  the  other  appeared  pleasing 
and  worthy,  so  that  in  the  breast  of  each  there  grew  up  a  se- 
cret passion  for  the  other  ;  "  and  again,  "  he  felt  his  heart 
grow  wild  with  emotion,  when  he  saw  so  much  loveliness  be- 
fore him/7  are  quite  certainly  a  product  of  Grey's  fancy,  for 
Polynesians,  as  we  have  seen,  do  not  speak  of  the  "  heart "  in 
that  sense,  and  such  a  word  as  "  emotions  "  is  entirely  beyond 
their  powers  of  abstraction  and  conception.  Grey  tells  us 
that  he  collected  different  portions  of  his  legends  from  differ- 
ent natives,  in  very  distant  parts  of  the  country,  at  long  in- 
tervals, and  afterward  rearranged  and  rewrote  them.  In  this 
way  he  succeeded  in  giving  us  some  interesting  legends,  but 
a  phonographic  record  of  tihfc fragment*  related  to  him,  with- 
out any  embroidering  of  "heart-affairs,"  "wild  emotions," 
and  other  adornments  of  modern  novels,  would  have  rendered 
them  infinitely  more  valuable  to  students  of  the  evolution  of 


536  ISLAND    LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 

emotions.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  so  few  of  the  recorders  of 
aboriginal  tales  followed  this  principle  ;  and  it  is  strange  that 
such  neatly  polished,  arranged,  and  modernized  tales  as  these 
should  have  been  accepted  so  long  as  illustrations  of  primitive 
love.1 

MAORI   LOVE-POEMS 

Besides  their  stories  of  love,  the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand 
also  have  poems,  some  accompanied  with  (often  obscene)  pan- 
tomimes,, others  without  accompaniment.  Shortland  (146- 
55),  Taylor  (310),  and  others  have  collected  and  translated 
some  of  these  poems,  of  which  the  following  are  the  best. 
Taylor  cites  this  one  : 

The  tears  gush  from  my  eyes, 
My  eyelashes  are  wet  with  tears ; 
But  stay,  my  tears,  within, 
Lest  you  should  be  called  mine. 

Alas !  I  am  betrothed  (literally,  my  hands  are  bound) ; 

It  is  for  Te  Maunee 

That  my  love  devours  me. 

But  I  may  weep  indeed, 

Beloved  one,  for  thee, 

Like  Tiniran's  lament 

For  his  favorite  pet  Tutunui 

Which  was  slain  by  Ngae. 

Alas! 

Shortland  gives  these  specimens  of  the  songs  that  are  fre- 
quently accompanied  by  immodest  gestures  of  the  body. 
Some  of  them  are  "not  sufficiently  decent  to  bear  translat- 
ing." The  one  marked  (4)  is  interesting  as  an  attempt  at 
hyperbole. 

(l) 

Your  body  is  at  Waitemata, 
But  your  spirit  came  hither 
And  aroused  me  from  my  sleep. 

1  There  is  much  reason  to  suspect,  too,  that  Grey  expurgated  and  white- 
washed these  tales.  See,  on  this  subject,  the  remarks  to  be  made  in  the  next 
chapter  regarding  the  Indian  love-stories  of  Schoolcraft,  bearing  in  mind  that 
Polynesians  are,  if  possible,  even  more  licentious  and  foul-mouthed  than 
Indians. 


MAORI    LOVE-POEMS  537 


Tawera  is  the  bright  star 
Of  the  morning. 
Not  less  beautiful  is  the 
Jewel  of  my  heart. 

(5) 

The  sun  is  setting  in  his  cave, 
Touching  as  he  descends  (the 
Land)  where  dwells  my  mate, 
He  who  is  whirled  away 
To  southern  seas. 

More  utilitarian  are  (6)  and  (7),  in  which  a  woman  asks 
"  Who  will  marry  a  man  too  lazy  to  till  the  ground  for  food  ?  " 
And  a  man  wants  to  know  "  Who  will  marry  a  woman  too 
lazy  to  weave  garments  ?"  Very  unlover-like  is  the  fol- 
lowing : 

I  don't  like  the  habits  of  woman. 
When  she  goes  out  — 
She  Kuikuis 
She  Koakoas 
She  chatters 

The  very  ground  is  terrified, 
And  the  rats  run  away. 
Just  so. 

More  poetic  are  the  waiata,  which  are  sung  without  the  aid 
of  any  action.  The  following  ode  was  composed  by  a  young 
woman  forsaken  by  her  lover  : 

Look  where  the  mist 
Hangs  over  Pukehina. 
There  is  the  path 
By  which  went  my  love. 

Turn  back  again  hither, 
That  may  be  poured  out 
Tears  from  my  eyes. 

It  was  not  I  who  first  spoke  of  love. 
You  it  was  who  made  advances  to  me 
When  I  was  but  a  little  thing. 

Therefore  was  my  heart  made  wild. 
This  is  my  farewell  of  love  to  thee. 


538  ISLAND    LOVE   ON   THE   PACIFIC 

A  young  woman,  who  had  been  carried  away  prisoner  from 
Tuhua,  gives  vent  to  her  longing  in  these  lines  : 

"  My  regret  is  not  to  be  expressed.  Tears  like  a  spring 
gush  from  my  eyes.  I  wonder  whatever  is  Te  Kaiuku  [her 
lover]  doing  :  he  who  deserted  me.  Now  I  climb  upon  the 
ridge  of  Mount  Parahaki  ;  from  whence  is  clear  the  view  of 
the  island  Tuhua.  I  see  with  regret  the  lofty  Taumo,  where 
dwells  Tangiteruru.  If  I  were  there,  the  shark's  tooth  would 
hang  from  my  ear.  How  fine,  how  beautiful,  should  I  look. 
But  see  whose  ship  is  that  tacking  ?  Is  it  yours  ?  0  Hu  ! 
you  husband  of  Pohiwa,  sailing  away  on  the  tide  to  Europe. 

"  O  Torn  !  pray  give  me  some  of  your  fine  things ;  for 
beautiful  are  the  clothes  of  the  sea-god." 

"Enough  of  this.  I  must  return  to  my  rags,  and  to  my 
nothing-at-all." 

In  this  case  the  loss  of  her  finery  seems  to  trouble  the  girl 
a  good  deal  more  than  the  loss  of  her  lover.  In  another  ode 
cited  by  Shortland  a  deserted  girl,  after  referring  to  her  tear- 
ful eyes,  winds  up  with  the  light-hearted 

Now  that  you  are  absent  in  your  native  land, 
The  day  of  regret  will,  perhaps,  end. 

There  is  a  suggestion  of  Sappho  in  the  last  of  these  odes  I 
shall  cite  : 

"  Love  does  not  torment  forever.  It  came  on  ine  like  the 
fire  which  rages  sometimes  at  Hukanai.  If  this  (beloved)  one 
is  near  me,  do  not  suppose,  0  Kiri,  that  my  sleep  is  sweet. 
I  lie  awake  the  live-long  night,  for  love  to  prey  on  me  in 
secret. 

"  It  shall  never  be  confessed,  lest  it  be  heard  of  by  all.  The 
only  evidence  shall  be  seen  on  my  cheeks. 

"The  plain  which  extends  to  Tauwhare  :  that  path  I  trod 
that  I  might  enter  the  house  of  Rawhirawhwi.  Don't  be 
angry  with  me,  0  madam  [addressed  to  Rawhirawhwi's  wife]  ; 
I  am  only  a  stranger.  For  you  there  is  the  body  (of  your 
husband).  For  me  there  remains  only  the  shadow  of  desire/7 

"In  the  last  two  lines,"  writes  Shortland,  "the  poetess 
coolly  requests  the  wife  of  the  person  for  whom  she  acknowl- 
edges an  unlawful  passion  not  to  be  angry  with  her,  because 
'  she — the  lawful  wife — has  always  possession  of  the  person  of 


THE   WOOING-HOUSE  539 

her  husband  ;  while  hers  is  only  an  empty,  Platonic  sort  of 
love/  This  is  rather  a  favorite  sentiment,  and  is  not  unfre- 
quently  introduced  similarly  into  love-songs  of  this  descrip- 
tion." 

THE   WOOING-HOUSE 

It  is  noticeable  that  these  love-poems  are  all  by  females, 
and  most  frequently  by  deserted  females.  This  does  not 
speak  well  for  the  gallantry  or  constancy  of  the  men.  Per- 
haps they  lacked  those  qualities  to  offset  the  feminine  lack  of 
coyness.  In  the  first  of  our  Maori  stories  the  maiden  swims 
to  the  man,  who  calmly  awaits  her,  playing  his  horn.  In  the 
second,  a  man  is  simultaneously  proposed  to  by  two  girls,  be- 
fore he  has  time  to  come  off  his  perch  on  the  tree.  This 
arouses  a  suspicion  which  is  confirmed  by  E.  Tregear's  revela- 
tions regarding  Maori  courtship  (Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.,  1889) : 

"  The  girl  generally  began  the  courting.  I  have  often  seen 
the  pretty  little  love-letter  fall  at  the  feet  of  a  lover — it 
was  a  little  bit  of  flax  made  into  a  sort  of  half -knot — '  yes ' 
was  made  by  pulling  the  knot  tight — '  no '  by  leaving  the 
matrimonial  noose  alone.  Now,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  it  is  often 
thrown  as  an  invitation  for  love-making  of  an  improper  char- 
acter. Sometimes  in  the  WJiare-Matoro  (the  wooing-house), 
a  building  in  which  the  young  of  both  sexes  assemble  for  play, 
songs,  dances,  etc.,  there  would  be  at  stated  times  a  meeting  ; 
when  the  fires  burned  low  a  girl  would  stand  up  in  the  dark 
and  say,  '  I  love  So-and-so,  I  want  him  for  my  husband/  If 
he  coughed  (sign  of  assent),  or  said  '  yes '  it  was  well ;  if  only 
dead  silence,  she  covered  her  head  with  her  robe  and  was 
ashamed.  This  was  not  often,  as  she  generally  had  managed 
to  ascertain  (either  by  her  own  inquiry  or  by  sending  a  girl 
friend)  if  the  proposal  was  acceptable.  On  the  other  hand, 
sometimes  a  mother  would  attend  and  say  '  I  want  So-and-so 
for  my  son/  If  not  acceptable  there  was  general  mocking, 
and  she  was  told  to  let  the  young  people  have  their  house  (the 
wooing-house)  to  themselves.  Sometimes,  if  the  unbe  trot  lied 
pair  had  not  secured  the  consent  of  the  parents,  a  late  suitor 
would  appear  on  the  scene,  and  the  poor  girl  got  almost 
hauled  to  death  between  them  all.  One  would  get  a  leg,  an- 
other an  arm,  another  the  hair,  etc.  Girls  have  been  injured 
for  life  in  these  disputes,  or  even  murdered  by  the  losing 
party/' 


540  ISLAND    LOVE    ON   THE    PACIFIC 


LIBERTY   OF   CHOICE   AtfD    RESPECT   FOR   WOMEN 

The  assertion  that  "  the  girl  generally  began  the  courting" 
must  not  mislead  us  into  supposing  that  Maori  women  were 
free,  as  a  rule,  to  marry  the  husbands  of  their  choice.  As  Tre- 
gear's  own  remarks  indicate,  the  advances  were  either  of  an 
improper  character,  or  the  girl  had  made  sure  beforehand 
that  there  was  no  impediment  in  the  way  of  her  proposal. 
The  Maori  proverb  that  as  the  fastidious  Kahawai  fish  selects 
the  hook  which  pleases  it  best,  so  a  woman  chooses  a  man  out 
of  many  (on  the  strength  of  which  alone  Westermarck,  217, 
claims  liberty  of  choice  for  Maori  women)  must  also  refer  to 
such  liaisons  before  marriage,  for  all  the  facts  indicate  that 
the  original  Maori  customs  allowed  women  no  choice  what- 
ever in  regard  to  marriage.  Here  the  brother's  consent  had  to 
be  obtained,  as  Shortland  remarks  (118).  Many  of  the  girls 
were  betrothed  in  infancy,  and  many  others  married  at  an 
age — twelve  to  thirteen — when  the  word  choice  could  have 
had  no  rational  meaning.  Tregear  informs  us  that  if  a  couple 
had  not  been  betrothed  as  children,  everyone  in  the  tribe 
claimed  a  right  to  interfere,  and  the  only  way  the  couple 
could  get  their  own  way  was  by  eloping.  Darwin  was  in- 
formed by  Man  tell  "  that  until  recently  almost  every  girl  in 
New  Zealand  who  was  pretty  or  promised  to  be  pretty  was  tapu 
to  some  chief ; "  and  we  further  read  that  "  when  a  chief 
desires  to  take  to  himself  a  wife,  he  fixes  his  attention  upon 
her,  and  takes  her,  if  need  be,  by  force,  without  consulting 
her  feelings  and  wishes  or  those  of  anyone  else/'  This  is 
confirmed  by  William  Brown,  in  his  book  on  the  aborigines. 
But  the  most  graphic  and  harrowing  description  of  Maori 
maltreatment  of  women  is  given  by  the  Rev.  R.  Taylor  : 

"  The  ancient  and  most  general  way  of  obtaining  a  wife 
was  for  the  gentleman  to  summon  his  friends  and  make  a  reg- 
ular taua,  or  fight,  to  carry  off  the  lady  by  force,  and  often- 
times with  great  violence.  ...  If  the  girl  had  eloped 
with  someone  on  whom  she  had  placed  her  affection,  then 
her  father  and  brother  would  refuse  their  consent/'  and  fight 
to  get  her  back.  "  The  unfortunate  female,  thus  placed  be- 


RESPECT   FOR   WOMEN  541 

tween  two  contending  parties,  would  soon  be  divested  of  ev- 
ery rag  of  clothing,  and  would  then  be  seized  by  her  head, 
hair,  or  limbs,"  her  "  cries  and  shrieks  would  be  unheeded 
by  her  savage  friends.  In  this  way  the  poor  creature  was 
often  nearly  torn  to  pieces.  These  savage  contests  some- 
times ended  in  the  strongest  party  bearing  off  in  triumph 
the  naked  person  of  the  bride.  In  some  cases,  after  a  long- 
season  of  suffering,  she  recovered,  to  be  given  to  a  person  for 
whom  she  had  no  affection,  in  others  to  die  within  a  few 
hours  or  days  from  the  injuries  which  she  had  received.  But 
it  was  not  uncommon  for  the  weaker  party,  when  they  found 
they  could  not  prevail,  for  one  of  them  to  put  an  end  to  the 
contest  by  suddenly  plunging  his  spear  into  the  woman's 
bosom  to  hinder  her  from  becoming  the  property  of  an- 
other." 

After  giving  this  account  on  page  163  of  the  Maori's 
"  ancient  and  most  general  way"  of  obtaining  a  wife — which 
puts  him  below  the  most  ferocious  brutes,  since  those  at  least 
spare  their  females — the  same  writer  informs  us  on  page  338 
that  "  there  are  few  races  who  treat  their  women  with  more 
deference  than  the  Maori  !  "  If  that  is  so,  it  can  only  be  due 
to  the  influence  of  the  whites,  since  all  the  testimony  indicates 
that  the  unadulterated  Maori — with  whom  alone  we  are  here 
concerned — did  not  treat  them  "with  great  respect,"  nor 
pay  any  deference  to  them  whatever.  The  cruel  method  of 
capture  described  above  was  so  general  that,  as  Taylor  him- 
self tells  us,  the  native  term  for  courtship  was  lie  aru  aru, 
literally,  a  following  or  pursuing  after ;  and  there  was  also 
a  special  expression  for  this  struggling  of  two  suitors  for  a 
girl — he  puna  rua.  As  for  their  "  great  respect "  for  women, 
they  do  not  allow  them  to  eat  with  the  men.  A  chief,  says 
Angas  (II.,  110),  "will  sometimes  permit  his  favorite  wife 
to  eat  with  him,  though  not  out  of  the  same  dish."  Ellis 
relates  (III.,  253)  that  New  Zealanders  are  "addicted  to 
the  greatest  vices  that  stain  the  human  character — treachery, 
cannibalism,  infanticide,  and  murder."  The  women  caught 
in  battle,  as  well  as  the  men,  were,  he  says,  enslaved  or  eaten. 
"  Sometimes  they  chopped  off  the  legs  and  arms  and  other- 
wise mangled  the  body  before  they  put  the  victim  to  death." 
Concubines  had  to  do  service  as  household  drudges.  A  man 


542  ISLAND    LOVE    ON   THE   PACIFIC 

on  dying  would  bequeath  his  wives  to  his  brother.  No  land 
was  bequeathed  to  female  children.  The  real  Maori  feeling 
toward  women  is  brought  out  in  the  answer  given  to  a  sister 
who  went  to  her  brothers  to  ask  for  a  share  of  the  lands  of 
the  family  :  "  Why,  you're  only  a  slave  to  blow  up  your  hus- 
band's fire."  (Shortland,  119,  255-58.) 


MAOEI   MOKALS   AND    CAPACITY   FOR   LOVE 

When  Hawkesworth  visited  New  Zealand  with  Captain 
Cook,  he  one  day  came  accidentally  across  some  women  who 
were  fishing,  and  who  had  thrown  off  their  last  garments. 
When  they  saw  him  they  were  as  confused  and  distressed 
as  Diana  and  her  nymphs  ;  they  hid  among  the  rocks  and 
crouched  down  in  the  sea  until  they  had  made  and  put  on 
girdles  of  seaweeds  (456).  "  There  are  instances,"  writes 
William  Brown  (36-37),  "  of  women  committing  suicide 
from  its  being  said  that  they  had  been  seen  naked.  A  chief's 
wife  took  her  own  life  because  she  had  been  hung  up  by  the 
heels  and  beaten  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  tribe." 

Shall  we  conclude  from  this  that  the  Maoris  were  genuine- 
ly modest  and  perhaps  capable  of  that  delicacy  in  regard  to 
sexual  matters  which  is  a  prerequisite  of  sentimental  love  ? 
What  is  modesty  ?  The  Century  Dictionary  says  it  is  "  de- 
corous feeling  or  behavior  ;  purity  or  delicacy  of  thought  or 
manner  ;  reserve  proceeding  from  pure  or  chaste  character  ;  " 
and  the  Encyclopedic  Dictionary  defines  it  as  "chastity; 
purity  of  manners  ;  decency  ;  freedom  from  lewdness  or  un- 
chastity."  Now,  Maori  modesty,  if  such  it  maybe  called,  was 
only  skin  deep.  Living  in  a  colder  climate  than  other  Poly- 
nesians, it  became  customary  among  them  to  wear  more 
clothing  ;  and  what  custom  prescribes  must  be  obeyed  to  the 
letter  among  all  these  peoples,  be  the  ordained  dress  merely  a 
loin  cloth  or  a  necklace,  or  a  cover  for  the  back  only,  or  full 
dress.  It  does  not  argue  true  modesty  on  the  part  of  a  Maori 
woman  to  cover  those  parts  of  her  body  which  custom  orders 
her  to  cover,  any  more  than  it  argues  true  modesty  on  the  part 
of  an  Oriental  barbarian  to  cover  her  face  only,  on  meeting  a 


HOW  AMEEICAN  INDIANS  LOVE 

"  On  the  subject  of  love  no  persons  have  been  less  under- 
stood than  the  Indians,"  wrote  Thomas  Ashe  in  1806  (271). 
"  It  is  said  of  them  that  they  have  no  aifection,  and  that  the 
intercourse  of  the  sexes  is  sustained  by  a  brutal  passion  re- 
mote from  tenderness  and  sensibility.  This  is  one  of  the 
many  gross  errors  which  have  been  propagated  to  calumniate 
these  innocent  people."  Waitz  remarks  (III.,  102) :  "  How 
much  alike  human  nature  is  everywhere  is  evinced  by  the 
remarkable  circumstance  that  notwithstanding  the  degrada- 
tion of  woman,  cases  of  romantic  love  are  not  even  very 
rare"  among  Indians.  "  Their  languages,"  writes  Professor 
Brinton  (R.  P.,  54),  "  supply  us  with  evidence  that  the  senti- 
ment of  love  was  awake  among  them,  and  this  is  corroborated 
by  the  incidents  we  learn  of  their  domestic  life. 
Some  of  the  songs  and  stories  of  this  race  seem  to  reveal  even 
a  capability  for  romantic  love  such  as  would  do  credit  to  a 
modern  novel.  This  is  the  more  astonishing,  as  in  the  Afri- 
can and  Mongolian  races  this  ethereal  sentiment  is  practically 
absent,  the  idealism  of  passion  being  something  foreign  to 
those  varieties  of  man."  The  Indians,  says  Catlin  (N.  A.  L, 
I.,  121),  "are  not  in  the  least  behind  us  in  conjugal,  in  filial, 
and  in  paternal  affection."  In  the  preface  to  Mrs.  Eastman's 
Life  and  Legend  of  the  Sioux.,  Mrs.  Kirk  man  exclaims  that 
"in  spite  of  all  that  renders  gross  and  mechanical  their  or- 
dinary mode  of  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage,  instances 
are  not  rare  among  them  of  love  as  true,  as  fiery,  and  as  fatal 
as  that  of  the  most  exalted  hero  of  romance."  Let  us  listen 
to  a  few  of  the  tales  of  Indian  love,  as  recorded  by  School- 
craft.1 

1  Considerations  of  space  compel  me  here,  as  in  other  cases,  to  condense  the 
stories  ;  but  1  conscientiously  and  purposely  retain  all  the  sentimental  passages 
and  expressions. 

545 


546  HOW   AMERICAN  INDIANS  LOVE 


THE   BED   LOVEE 

Many  years  ago  there  lived  a  Chippewa  warrior  on  the 
banks  of  Lake  Superior.  His  name  was  Wawanosh  and  he 
was  renowed  for  his  ancestry  and  personal  bravery.  He  had 
an  only  daughter,  eighteen  years  old,  celebrated  for  her 
gentle  virtues,  her  slender  form,  her  full  beaming  hazel  eyes, 
and  her  dark  and  flowing  hair.  Her  hand  was  sought  by  a 
young  man  of  humble  parentage,  but  a  tall  commanding 
form,  a  manly  step,  and  an  eye  beaming  with  the  tropical  fires 
of  love  and  youth.  These  were  sufficient  to  attract  the  favor- 
able notice  of  the  daughter,  but  did  not  satisfy  the  father, 
who  sternly  informed  the  young  man  that  before  he  could 
hope  to  mingle  his  humble  blood  with  that  of  so  renowned  a 
warrior  he  would  have  to  go  and  make  a  name  for  himself  by 
enduring  fatigue  in  the  campaigns  against  enemies,  by  tak- 
ing scalps,  and  proving  himself  a  successful  hunter. 

The  intimidated  lover  departed,  resolved  to  do  a  deed  that 
should  render  him  worthy  of  the  daughter  of  Wawanosh,  or 
die  in  the  attempt.  In  a  few  days  he  succeeded  in  getting 
together  a  band  of  young  men  all  eager,  like  himself,  to  dis- 
tinguish themselves  in  battle.  Armed  with  bow  and  quiver, 
and  ornamented  with  war-paint  and  feathers,  they  had  their 
war-dance,  which  was  continued  for  two  days  and  nights. 
Before  leaving  with  his  companions  the  leader  sought  an  in- 
terview with  the  daughter  of  Wawanosh.  He  disclosed  to  her 
his  firm  intention  never  to  return  unless  he  could  establish 
his  name  as  a  warrior.  He  told  her  of  the  pangs  he  had  felt 
at  her  father's  implied  imputation  of  effeminacy  and  coward- 
ice. He  averred  that  he  never  could  be  happy,  either  with 
or  without  her,  until  he  had  proved  to  the  whole  tribe  the 
strength  of  his  heart,  which  is  the  Indian  term  for  courage. 
He  repeated  his  protestations  of  inviolable  attachment,  whicn 
she  returned,  and,  pledging  vows  of  mutual  fidelity,  they 
parted. 

She  never  saw  him  again.  A  warrior  brought  home  the 
tidings  that  he  had  received  a  fatal  arrow  in  his  breast  after 
distinguishing  himself  by  the  most  heroic  bravery.  From 
that  moment  the  young  girl  never  smiled  again.  She  pined 
away  by  day  and  by  night.  Deaf  to  entreaty  and  reproach,  she 
would  seek  a  sequestered  spot,  where  she  would  sit  under  a 
shady  tree,  and  sing  her  mournful  laments  for  hours  together. 
A  small,  beautiful  bird,  of  a  kind  she  had  never  seen,  sat  on 
her  tree  every  day,  singing  until  dark.  Her  fond  imagina- 
tion soon  led  her  to  suppose  it  was  the  spirit  of  her  lover,  and 


THE   FOAM   WOMAN  547 

her  visits  were  repeated  with  greater  frequency.  She  passed 
her  time  in  fasting  and  singing  her  plaintive  songs.  Thus 
she  pined  away,  until  the  death  she  so  fervently  desired  came 
to  her  relief.  After  her  death  the  bird  was  never  more  seen, 
and  it  became  a  popular  opinion  that  this  mysterious  bird  had 
flown  away  with  Ler  spirit.  But  bitter  tears  of  regret  fell  in 
the  lodge  of  Wawanosh.  Too  late  he  regretted  his  false  pride 
and  his  harsh  treatment  of  the  noble  youth. 


THE   FOAM  WOMAN 

There  once  lived  an  Ottawa  woman  on  the  shores  of  Lake 
Michigan  who  had  a  daughter  as  beautiful  as  she  was  modest 
and  discreet.  She  was  so  handsome  that  her  mother  feared 
she  would  be  carried  off,  and,  to  prevent  it,  she*  put  her  in  a 
box  on  the  lake,  ,which  was  tied  by  a  long  string  to  a  stake  on 
the  shore.  Every  morning  the  mother  pulled  the  box  ashore, 
and  combed  her  daughter's  long,  shining  hair,  gave  her  food, 
and  then  put  her  out  again  on  the  lake. 

One  day  a  handsome  young  man  chanced  to  come  to  the 
spot  at  the  moment  she  was  receiving  her  morning's  atten- 
tions from  her  mother.  He  was  struck  with  her  beauty  and 
immediately  went  home  and  told  his  feelings  to  his  uncle, 
who  was  a  great  chief  and  a  powerful  magician.  The  uncle 
told  him  to  go  to  the  mother's  lodge,  sit  down  in  a  modest 
manner,  and,  without  saying  a  word,  think  what  he  wanted, 
and  he  would  be  understood  and  answered.  He  did  so  ;  but 
the  mother's  answer  was  :  "  Give  you  my  daughter  ?  No, 
indeed,  my  daughter  shall  never  marry  you."  This  pride  and 
haughtiness  angered  the  uncle  and  the  spirits  of  the  lake,  who 
raised  a  great  storm  on  the  water.  The  tossing  waves  broke 
the  string,  and  the  box  with  the  girl  floated  off  through  the 
straits  to  Lake  Huron.  It  was  there  cast  on  shore  and  found 
by  an  old  spirit  who  took  the  beautiful  girl  to  his  lodge  and 
married  her. 

The  mother,  when  she  found  her  daughter  gone,  raised  loud 
cries,  and  continued  her  lamentations  for  a  long  time.  At 
last,  after  two  or  three  years,  the  spirits  had  pity  on  her  and 
raised  another  storm,  greater  even  than  the  first.  When  the 
water  rose  and  encroached  on  the  lodge  where  the  daughter 
lived,  she  leaped  into  the  box,  and  the  waves  carried  her  back 
to  her  mother's  lodge.  The  mother  was  overjoyed,  but  when 
she  opened  the  box  she  found  that  her  daughter's  beauty  had 
almost  all  departed.  However,  she  still  loved  her  because  she 
was  her  daughter,  and  she  now  thought  of  the  young  man 


548  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

who  had  made  her  the  offer  of  marriage.  She  sent  a  formal 
message  to  him,  but  he  had  changed  his  mind,  for  he  know 
that  she  had  been  the  wife  of  another.  "I  marry  your 
daughter  ?  "  said  he  ;  "  your  daughter  !  No,  indeed  !  I  shall 
never  marry  her." 


THE   HUMPBACK   MAGICIAK 

Bokwewa  and  his  brother  lived  in  a  secluded  part  of  the 
country.  They  were  considered  as  Manitoes  who  had  as- 
sumed mortal  shapes.  Bokwewa  was  a  humpback,  but  had 
the  gifts  of  a  magician,  while  the  brother  was  more  like  the 
present  race  of  beings.  One  day  the  brother  said  to  the 
humpback  that  he  was  going  away  to  visit  the  habitations  of 
men,  and  procure  a  wife.  He  travelled  alone  a  long  time. 
At  length  he  came  to  a  deserted  camp,  where  he  saw  a  corpse 
on  a  scaffold.  He  took  it  down  and  found  it  was  the  body  of 
a  beautiful  young  woman.  "She  shall  be  my  wife,"  he  ex- 
claimed. 

He  took  her  and  carried  her  home  on  his  back.  "  Brother," 
he  exclaimed,  "cannot  you  restore  her  life  ?  Oh  !  do  me  that 
favor." 

The  humpback  said  he  would  try,  and,  after  performing 
various  ceremonies,  succeeded  in  restoring  her  to  life.  They 
lived  very  happily  for  some  time.  But  one  day  when  the 
humpback  was  home  alone  with  the  woman,  her  husband 
having  gone  out  to  hunt,  a  powerful  Manito  came  and  car- 
ried her  off,  though  Bokwewa  used  all  his  strength  to  save 
her. 

When  the  brother  returned  and  heard  what  had  happened 
he  would  not  taste  food  for  several  days.  Sometimes  he  would 
fall  to  weeping  for  a  long  time,  and  appear  almost  beside 
himself.  At  last  he  said  he  would  go  in  search  of  her.  His 
brother,  finding  that  he  could  not  dissuade  him,  cautioned 
him  against  the  dangers  of  the  road  ;  he  must  pass  uy  the 
large  grape-vine  and  the  frog's  eggs  that  he  would  come  across. 
But  the  young  husband  heeded  not  his  advice.  He  started 
out  on  his  journey  and  when  he  found  the  grapes  and  the 
frog's  eggs  he  ate  them. 

At  length  he  came  to  the  tribe  into  which  his  wife  had  been 
stolen.  .  Throngs  of  men  and  women,  gaily  dressed,  came  out 
to  meet  him.  As  he  had  eaten  of  the  grapes  and  frog's  eggs — 
snares  laid  for  him — he  was  soon  overcome  by  their  flatteries 
and  pleasures,  and  he  was  not  long  afterward  seen  beating 
corn  with  their  women  (the  strongest  proof  of  effeminacy), 


THK   BUFFALO    KING  549 

although  his  wife,  for  whom  he  had  mourned  so  much,  was  in 
that  Indian  metropolis. 

Meanwhile  Bokwevva  waited  patiently  for  his  brother,  but 
when  he  did  not  return  he  set  out  in  search  of  him.  He 
avoided  the  allurements  along  the  road  and  when  he  came 
among  the  luxurious  people  of  the  South  he  wept  on  seeing 
his  brother  beating  corn  with  the  women.  He  waited  till 
the  stolen  wife  came  down  to  the  river  to  draw  water  for  her 
new  husband,  the  Manito.  He  changed  himself  into  a  hair- 
snake,  was  scooped  up  in  her  bucket,  and  drunk  by  the  Man- 
ito, who  soon  after  was  dead.  Then  the  humpback  resumed 
his  human  shape  and  tried  to  reclaim  his  brother  ;  but  the 
brother  was  so  taken  up  with  the  pleasures  and  dissipations 
into  which  he  had  fallen  that  he  refused  to  give  them  up. 
Finding  he  was  past  reclaiming,  Bokwewa  left  him  and  dis- 
appeared forever. 

THE    BUFFALO    KING 

Aggodagauda  was  an  Indian  who  lived  in  the  forest. 
Though  he  had  accidentally  lost  the  use  of  one  of  his  two 
legs  he  was  a  famous  hunter.  But  he  had  a  great  enemy  in 
the  king  of  buffaloes,  who  frequently  passed  over. the  plain 
with  the  force  of  a  tempest,  The  chief  object  of  the  wily 
buffalo  waa  to  carry  off  Aggodagauda's  daughter,  who  was 
very  beautiful.  To  prevent  this  Aggodagauda  had  built  a 
log  cabin,  and  it  was  only  on  the  roof  of  this  that  he  permit- 
ted his  daughter  to  take  the  open  air  and  disport  herself. 
Now  her  hair  was  so  long  that  when  she  untied  it  the  raven 
locks  hung  down  to  the  ground. 

One  day,  when  her  father  was  off  on  a  hunt,  she  went  out 
on  top  of  the  house  and  sat  combing  her  long  and  beautiful 
hair,  on  the  eaves  of  the  lodge,  when  the  buffalo  king,  com- 
ing suddenly  by,  caught  her  glossy  hair,  and  winding  it  about 
his  horns,  tossed  her  onto  his  shoulders  and  carried  her  to 
his  village.  Here  he  paid  every  attention  to  gain  her  (iffec^ 
//H//X,  but  all  to  no  purpose,  for  she  sat  pensively  and  discon- 
solate in  the  lodge  among  the  other  females,  and  scarcely 
ever  spoke,  and  took  no  part  in  the  domestic  cares  of  her 
lover  the  king.  He,  on  the  contrary,  did  everything  he  could 
think  of  to  please  her  and  win  her  affections.  He  told  the 
others  in  his  lodge  to  give  her  everything  she  wanted,  and  to 
be  careful  not  to  displease  her.  They  set  before  her  the 
choicest  food.  They  gave  her  the  seat  of  honor  in  the  lodge. 
The  king  himself  went  out  hunting  to  obtain  the  most  dainty 
bits  of  meat.  And  not  content  with  these  proofs  of  his  at- 


550  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

tachment  he  fasted  himself,  and  would  often  take  his  flute 
and  sit  near  the  lodge  indulging  his  mind  in  repeating  a  few 
pensive  notes  : 

My  sweetheart, 
My  sweetheart, 

Ah  me! 

When  I  think  of  you, 
When  I  think  of  you, 

Ah  me ! 

How  I  love  you, 
How  I  love  you, 

Ah  me ! 

Do  not  hate  me, 
Do  not  hate  me, 

Ah  me! 

In  the  meantime  Aggodagauda  had  returned  from  his  hunt, 
and  finding  his  daughter  gone,  determined  to  recover  her. 
During  her  flight  her  long  hair  had  caught  on  the  branches 
and  broken  them,  and  it  was  by  following  these  broken 
twigs  that  he  tracked  her.  When  he  came  to  the  king's 
lodge  it  was  evening.  He  cautiously  peeped  in  and  saw 
his  daughter  sitting  disconsolately.  She  caught  his  eye, 
and,  in  order  to  meet  him,  said  to  the  king,  "  Give  me  a  dip- 
per, I  will  go  and  get  you  a  drink  of  water."  Delighted  with 
this  token  of  submission,  the  king  allowed  her  to  go  to  the 
river.  There  she  met  her  father  and  escaped  with  him. 


THE   HAUNTED   GROVE 

Leelinau  was  the  favorite  daughter  of  an  Odjibwa  hunter, 
living  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Superior.  From  her  earliest 
youth  she  was  observed  to  be  pensive  and  timid,  and  to  spend 
much  of  her  time  in  solitude  and  fasting.  Whenever  she 
could  leave  her  father's  lodge  she  would  fly  to  the  remote 
haunts  and  recesses  of  the  woods,  or  sit  upon  some  high  prom- 
ontory of  rock  overhanging  the  lake.  But  her  favorite  place 
was  a  forest  of  pines  known  as  the  Sacred  Grove.  It  was  sup- 
posed to  be  inhabited  by  a  class  of  fairies  who  love  romantic 
scenes.  This  spot  Leelinau  visited  often,  gathering  on  the 
way  strange  floivers  or  plants  to  bring  home.  It  was  there 
that  she  fasted,  supplicated,  and  strolled. 

The  effect  of  these  visits  was  to  make  the  girl  melancholy 
and  dissatisfied  with  the  realities  of  life.  She  did  not  care  to 
play  with  the  other  young  people.  Nor  did  she  favor  the 
plan  of  her  parents  to  marry  her  to  a  man  much  her  senior  in 
years,  but  a  reputed  chief.  No  attention  was  paid  to  her 


THE   GIRL   AND   THE   SCALP  551 

disinclination,  and  the  man  was  informed  that  his  offer  had 
been  favorably  received.  The  day  for  the  marriage  was  fixed 
and  the  guests  invited. 

The  girl  had  told  her  parents  that  she  would  never  consent 
to  the  match.  On  the  evening  preceding  the  day  fixed  for 
her  marriage  she  dressed  herself  in  her  best  garments  and  put 
on  all  her  ornaments.  Then  she  told  her  parents  she  was  go- 
ing to  meet  her  little  lover,  the  chieftain  of  the  green  plume, 
who  was  waiting  for  her  at  the  Spirit  Grove.  Supposing  she 
was  going  to  act  some  harmless  freak,  they  let  her  go.  When 
she  did  not  return  at  sunset  alarm  was  felt ;  with  lighted 
torches  the  gloomy  pine  forest  was  searched,  but  no  trace  of 
the  girl  was  ever  found,  and  the  parents  mourned  the  loss  of 
a  daughter  whose  inclinations  they  had,  in  the  end,  too  vio- 
lently thwarted. 

THE   GIRL  AKD  THE   SCALP 

» 

About  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  there  lived 
on  the  shores  of  Lake  Ontario  a  Wyandot  girl  so  beautiful 
that  she  had  for  suitors  nearly  all  the  young  men  of  her  tribe ; 
but  while  she  rejected  none,  neither  did  she  favor  any  one  in 
particular.  To  prevent  her  from  falling  to  someone  riot 
in  their  tribe  the  suitors  held  a  meeting  and  concluded  that 
their  claims  should  be  withdrawn  and  the  war  chief  urged  to 
woo  her.  He  objected  on  account  of  the  disparity  of  years, 
but  was  finally  persuaded  to  make  his  advances.  His  practice 
had  been  confined  rather  to  the  use  of  stone-headed  arrows  than 
love-darts,  and  his  dexterity  in  the  management  of  hearts  dis- 
played rather  in  making  bloody  incisions  than  tender  impres- 
sions. But  after  he  had  painted  and  arrayed  himself  as  for 
battle  and  otherwise  adorned  his  person,  he  paid  court  to  her, 
and  a  few  days  later  was  accepted  on  condition  that  he  would 
pledge  his  word  as  a  warrior  to  do  what  she  should  ask  of 
him.  When  his  pledge  had  been  given  she  told  him  to  bring 
her  the  scalp  of  a  certain  Seneca  chief  whom  she  hated.  He 
begged  her  to  reflect  that  this  chief  was  his  bosorn  friend, 
whose  confidence  it  would  be  an  infamy  to  betray.  But  she 
told  him  either  to  redeem  his  pledge  or  be  proclaimed  for  a 
lying  dog,  and  then  left  him. 

Goaded  into  fury,  the  Wyandot  chief  blackened  his  face 
and  rushed  off  to  the  Seneca  village,  where  he  tomahawked  his 
friend  and  rushed  out  of  the  lodge  with  his  scalp.  A  moment 
later  the  mournful  scalp-whoop  of  the  Senecas  was  resounding 
through  the  village.  The  Wyandot  camp  was  attacked,  and 
after  a  deadly  combat  of  three  days  the  Senecas  triumphed, 


552  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

avenging  the  murder  of  their  chief  by  the  death  of  his  assail- 
ant as  well  as  of  the  miserable  girl  who  had  caused  the  tragedy. 
The  war  thus  begun  lasted  more  than  thirty  years. 


A    CHIPPEWA    LQVE-SONG 

In  1759  great  exertions  were  made  by  the  French  Indian 
Department  under  General  Montcalm  to  bring  a  body  of  Ind- 
ians into  the  valley  of  the  lower  St.  Lawrence,  and  invitations 
for  this  purpose  reached  the  utmost  shores  of  Lake  Superior. 
In  one  of  the  canoes  from  that  quarter,  which  was  left  on  the 
vyay  down  at  the  mouth  of  the  Utawas,  was  a  Chippewa  girl 
named  Paigwaineoshe,  or  the  White  Eagle.  While  the  party 
awaited  there  the  result  of  events  at  Quebec  she  formei}  an 
attachment  for  a  young  Algonquin  belonging  to  a  French 
mission.  This  attachment  was  mutual,  a^id  gave  rise  to  a 
song  of  which  the  following  is  a  prose  translation  :« 

I.  Ah  me  !     When  I  think  of  him — when  J  think  of  lum- 
my sweetheart,  my  Algonquin. 

II.  As  I  embarked  to  return,  he  put  the  white  wampum 
around  my  neck — a  pledge  of  troth,  my  sweetheart,  my  Al- 
gonquin. 

III.  I  shall  go  with  you,  he  said,  to  your  native  country — 
I  shall  go  with  you,  my  sweetheart — my  Algonquin. 

IV.  Alas  !  I  replied — my  native  country  is  far,  far  away — 
my  sweetheart,  my  Algonquin. 

V.  When  I  looked  back  again — where  we  parted,  he  was 
still  looking  after  me,  my  sweetheart,  my  Algonquin. 

VI.  He  was  still  standing  on  a  fallen  tree — that  had  fallen 
into,  the  water,  my  sweetheart,  my  Algonquin. 

VII.  Alas  !     When  I  think  of  him — when  I  think  of  him 
— It  is  when  I  think  of  him,  my  Algonquin. 


HOW    "  INDIAN    STORIES        ARE    WRITTEN 

Here  \ve  have  seven  love-stories  as  romantic  as  you  please 
and  full  of  sentimental  touches.  Do  they  not  disprove  my 
theory  that  uncivilized  races  are  incapable  of  feeling  sentd- 
mental  love  ?  Some  think  they  do,  and  Waitz  is  not  the 
only  anthropologist  who  has  accepted  such  stories  as  proof 
that  human  nature,  as  far  as  love  is  concerned,  is  the  same  un- 
der all  circumstances.  The  above  tales  are  taken  from  the 


HOW    "INDIAN   STORIES"    ARE   WRITTEN     553 

books  of  a  man  who  spent  much  of  his  life  among  Indians  and 
issued  a  number  of  works  about  them,  one  of  which,  in  six 
volumes,  was  published  under  the  auspices  of  the  United 
States  Government.  This  expert  —  Henry  R.  Schoolcraft  — 
was  member  of  so  many  learned  societies  that  it  takes  twelve 
lines  of  small  type  to,  print  them  all.  Moreover,  he  expressly 
nssures  us1  that  "the  value  o,f  these  traditionary  stories  ap- 
pears to  depend  very  much  upon  their  being  left,  as  nearly  as 
possible,  in  their  original  forms  of  thought  and  expression," 
the  obvious  inference  being  an  assurance  that  he  has  so  left 
them  ;  and  he  adds  that  in  the  collection  and  translation  of 
these  stories  he  enjoyed  the  great  advantages  of  seventeen 
years'  life  as  executive  officer  for  the  tribes,  and  a  knowledge 
of  their  languages. 

And  now,  having  given  the  enemy's  battle-ship  every  pos- 
sible advantage,  the  reader  will  allow  me  to  bring  on  iny  little 
torpedo-boat,  in  the  first  place  Schoolcraft  mentions  (A.  .#., 
I.,  56)  twelve  persons,  six  of  them  women,  who  helped  him 
collect  and  interpret  the  material  of  the  tales  united  in  his 
volumes  ;  but  he  does  not  tell  us  whether  all  or  any  of  these 
collectors  acted  on  the  principle  that  these  stories  could  claim 
absolutely  no  scientific  value  unless  they  were  verbatim  re- 
ports of  aboriginal  tales,  without  any  additions  and  sentimen- 
tal embroideries  by  the  compilers.  This  omission  alone  is 
fatal  to  the  whole  collection,  reducing  it  to  the  value  of  a 
mere  fairy  book  for  the  entertainment  of  children,  and  allow- 
ing us  to  make  no  inferences  from  it  regarding  th,e  quality 
and  expression  of  an  Indian's  love. 

Schoolcraft  stands  convicted  by  his  own  action.  When  I 
read  his  tales  for  the  first  time  I  came  across  numerous  sen- 
tences and  sentiments  which  I  knew  from  my  own  experience 
among  Indians  were  utterly  foreign  to  Indian  modes  of 
thought  and  feeling,  and  which  they  could  no  more  have 
uttered  than  they  could  have  penned  Longfellow's  Hiawatha, 
or  the  essays  of  Emerson.  In  the  stories  of  "  The  Ked 


Research™,  ISM,  1.,  43.  From  tins  work  the  first  five  of  the  above 
stories  are  taken,  the  others  being  from  the  same  author's  Oneota  (54-57;  15- 
10).  The  stories  in  Alyic  Jteseurches  were  reprinted  in  1856  under  the  title 
The  Myth  of  Hiawatha  and  Other  Oral  Legends. 


554  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

Lover/'  "  The  Buffalo  King/7  and  "  The  Haunted  Grove/'1 
I  have  italicized  a  few  of  these  suspicious  passages.  To  take 
the  last-named  tale  first,  it  is  absurd  to  speak  of  Indian 
"  fairies  who  love  romantic  scenes/'  or  of  a  girl  romantically 
sitting  on  a  rocky  promontory,2  or  "  gathering  strange 
flowers ; "  for  Indians  have  no  conception  of  the  romantic 
side  of  nature — of  scenery  for  its  own  sake.  To  them  a  tree 
is  simply  a  grouse  perch,  or  a  source  of  fire-wood  ;  a  lake,  a 
fish-pond,  a  mountain,  the  dreaded  abode  of  evil  spirits.  In 
the  tale  of  the  "  Buffalo  King"  we  read  of  the  chief  doing 
a  number  of  things  to  win  the  affection  of  the  refractory 
bride — telling  the  others  not  to  displease  her,  giving  her 
"  the  seat  of  honor,"  and  going  so  far  as  to  fast  himself, 
whereas  in  real  life,  under  such  circumstances,  he  would 
have  curtly  clubbed  the  stolen  bride  into  submission.  In  the 
tale  of  the  "  Ked  Lover  "  the  girl  is  admired  for  her  "  slender 
form,"  whereas  a  real  Indian  values  a  woman  in  proportion 
to  her  weight  and  rotundity.  Indians  do  not  make  "  protes- 
tations of  inviolable  attachment,"  or  "pledge  vows  of  mutual 
fidelity,"  like  the  lovers  of  our  fashionable  novels.  As  Charles 
A.  Leland  remarks  of  the  same  race  of  Indians  (85),  "When 
an  Indian  seeks  a  wife,  he  or  his  mutual  friend  makes  no  great 
ado  about  it,  but  utters  two  words  which  tell  the  whole 
story."  But  there  is  no  need  of  citing  other  authors,  for 
Schoolcraft,  as  I  have  just  intimated,  stands  convicted  by  his 
own  action.  In  the  second  edition  of  his  Algic  Researches, 
which  appeared  after  an  interval  of  seventeen  years  and  re- 
ceived the  title  of  The  Myth  of  Hiawatha  and  other  Oral  Le- 
gends of  the  North  American  Indians,  he  seemed  to  remem- 
ber what  he  wrote  in  the  preface  of  the  first  regarding  these 
stories,  "  that  in  the  original  there  is  no  attempt  at  orna- 
ment," so  he  removed  nearly  all  of  the  romantic  embroider- 
ies, like  those  I  have  italicized  and  commented  on,  and  also 
relegated  the  majority  of  his  ludicrously  sentimental  inter- 

1 1  have  taken  the  liberty  of  giving  to  most  of  the  stories  cited  more  attrac- 
tive titles  than  Schoolcraft  gave  them.  He  himself  changed  some  of  the  titles 
in  his  later  edition. 

8  In  another  of  these  tales  (A.  R.,  II.,  165-80)  Schoolcraft  refers  to  a  girl  who 
went  astray  in  the  woods  "  while  admiring  the  scenery." 


REALITY   VERSUS   RtmkNCE-^  555 


spersed  poems  to  the  appendix.  In  the  preface  to  Hiawatha, 
he  refers  in  connection  with  some  of  these  verses  to  "  the 
poetic  use  of  aboriginal  ideas. "  Now,  a  man  has  a  perfect 
right  to  make  such  "poetic  use"  of  "aboriginal  ideas,"  but 
not  when  he  has  led  his  readers  to  believe  that  he  is  telling 
these  stories  "  as  nearly  as  possible  in  their  original  forms  of 
thought  and  expression."  It  is  very  much  as  if  Edward 
MacDowell  had  published  the  several  movements  of  his 
Indian  Suite  as  being,  not  only  in  their  ideas,  but  in  their 
(modern  European)  harmonies  and  orchestration,  a  faithful 
transcript  of  aboriginal  Indian  music.  Schoolcraft's  proced- 
ure, in  other  words,  amounts  to  a  sort  of  Ossianic  mystifi- 
cation ;  and  unfortunately  he  has  had  not  a  few  imitators,  to 
the  confusion  of  comparative  psychologists  and  students  of 
the  evolution  of  love. 

It  is  a  great  pity  that  Schoolcraft,  with  his  valuable  oppor- 
tunities for  ethnological  research,  should  not  have  added  a 
critical  attitude  and  a  habit  of  accuracy  to  his  great  industry. 
The  historian  Parkman,  a  model  observer  and  scholar,  de- 
scribed Schoolcraft's  volumes  on  the  Indian  Tribes  of  the 
United  States  as  "a  singularly  crude  and  illiterate  produc- 
tion, stuffed  with  blunders  and  contradictions,  giving  evidence 
on  every  page  of  a  striking  unfitness  for  historical  or  scientific 


inquiry."  1 


KEALITY  VERSUS   ROMANCE 


A  few  of  the  tales  I  have  cited  are  not  marred  by  super- 
added  sentimental  adornments,  but  all  of  them  are  open  to 
suspicion  from  still  another  point  of  view.  They  are  invari- 
ably so  proper  and  pure  that  they  might  be  read  to  Sunday- 
school  classes.  Since  one-half  of  Schoolcraft's  assistants  in 
the  compilation  of  this  material  were  women,  this  might  have 
been  expected,  and  if  the  collection  had  been  issued  as  a 
Fairy  Book  it  would  have  been  a  matter  of  course.  But. 
they  were  issued  as  accurate  "  oral  legends  "  of  wild  Indians, 

1  Schoolcraft's  volumes  include,  however,  a  number  of  reliable  and  valuable 
articles  on  various  Indian  tribes  by  other  writers.  These  are  often  referred  to 
in  anthropological  treatises,  including  the  present  volume. 


556  HOW    AMERICAN    INDIANS    LOVE 

and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  student  of  the  history  of 
love  the  most  important  question  to  ask  was,  "  Are  Indian 
stories  in  reality  as  pure  and  refined  in  tone  as  these  speci^ 
mens  would  lead  us  to  suspect  ?  "  I  will  answer  that  question 
by  citing  the  words  of  one  of  the  warmest  champions  of  the 
Indians,  the  eminent  American  anthropologist,  Professor  D. 
G.  Brinton  (M.  N.  W.,  160)  :  "  Anyone  who  has  listened  to 
Indian  tales,  not  as  they  are  recorded  in  books,  but  as  they 
are  told  by  the  camp-fire,  will  bear  witness  to  the  abounding 
obscenity  they  deal  in.  That  the  same  vulgarity  shows  itself 
in  their  arts  and  life,  no  genuine  observer  need  doubt."  And 
in  a  footnote  he  gives  this  extremely  interesting  information  : 
1  *  The  late  George  Gibbs  will  be  acknowledged  as  an  authority 
here.  He  was  at  tiie  time  of  his  death  preparing  a  Latin 
translation  of  the  tales  he  had  collected,  as  they  were  too 
erotic  to  print  in  English.  He  wrote  me,  '  Schoolcraf t's 
legends  are  emasculated  to  a  degree  that  they  become  110 
longer  Indian/  'J 

No  longer  Indian,  indeed  !  And  these  doctored  stories, 
artfully  sentimentalized  at  one  end  and  expurgated  at  the 
other,  are  advanced  as  proofs  that  a  savage  Indian's  love  is 
just  as  refined  as  that  of  a  civilized  Christian  !  What  Indian 
stories  really  are,  the  reader,  if  he  can  stomach  such  things, 
may  find  out  for  himself  by  consulting  the  marvellously  copi- 
ous and  almost  phonographically  accurate  collection  of  native 
tales  which  another  of  our  most  eminent  anthropologists,  Dr. 
Franz  Boas,  has  printed.1  And  it  must  be  borne  in  nund 
that  these  stories  are  not  the  secret  gossip  of  vulgar  men 
alone  by  themselves,  but  are  national  tales  with  which  chil- 
dren of  both  sexes  become  familiar  from  their  earliest  years. 
As  Colonel  Dodge  remarks  (213)  :  it  is  customary  for  as 
many  as  a  dozen  persons  of  both  sexes  to  live  in  one  room, 
hence  there  is  an  entire  lack  of  privacy,  either  in  word  or 
act.  "  It  is  a  wonder,"  says  Powers  (271),  "  that  children 


impossible  even  to  hint  here  at  the  details  of  these  stories.  Some  are  licen- 
tious, others  merely  filthy.  Powers,  in  his  great,  work  on  the  California  Indians 
(348),  refers  to  "the  unspeakable  obscenity  of  their  legends." 


APPARENT   EXCEPTIONS  567 

read  in  Schoolcraft  (V.,  683)  that  "the  men  are  grossly 
licentious,  treating  female  captives  in  a  most  cruel  and  bar- 
barous manner  ;  but  they  enforce  rigid  chastity  upon  their 
women." 

Among  the  Modocs  a  wife  who  violated  her  husband's  prop- 
erty rights  in  her  "chastity,"  was  disembowelled  in  public, 
as  Bancroft  informs  us  (I.,  350).  No  wonder  that,  as  he  adds, 
"  adultery,  being  attended  with  so  much  danger,  is  compar- 
atively rare,  but  among  the  unmarried,  who  have  nothing  to 
fear,  a  gross  licentiousness  prevails." 

The  Peruvian  sun  virgins  are  often  supposed  to  indicate 
a  regard  for  purity  ;  but  in  reality  the  temples  in  which  these 
girls  were  reared  and  guarded  were  nothing  but  nurseries  for 
providing  a  choice  assortment  of  concubines  for  the  licentious 
Incas  and  their  friends.  (Torquemada,  IX.,  16.  )l  "In  the 
earlier  times  of  Peru  the  union  of  the  sexes  was  voluntary, 
unregulated,  and  accompanied  by  barbarous  usages  :  many  of 
which  even  at  the  present  day  exist  among  the  uncivilized 
nations  of  South  America."  (Tschudr's  Antiquities,  184  ; 
McCulloh,  379.)  Of  the  Mexicans,  too,  it  has  been  erro- 
neously said  that  they  valued  purity  ;  but  Bandelier  has  col- 
lected facts  from  the  old  Spanish  writers,  in  summing  which 
up  he  says  :  "  This  almost  establishes  promiscuity  among  the 
ancient  Mexicans,  as  a  preliminary  to  formal  marriage/5 
Oddly  enough,  the  crime  of  adultery  with  a  married  woman 
was  considered  one  against  a  cluster  of  kindred,  and  not 
against  the  husband  ;  for  if  he  caught  the  culprits  in  fia- 
grante  delictu  and  killed  the  wife,  he  lost  his  own  life  ! 

Another  source  of  error  regarding  exceptional  virtue  in  an 
Indian  tribe  lies  in  the  fact  that  in  some  few  cases  female 
captives  were  spared.  This  was  due,  however,  not  to  a  chiv- 
alrous regard  for  female  virtue,  but  to  superstition.  James 


says  (Relation,  266)  that  "the  virgins  of  the  sun  feigned  to  pre- 
serve virginity  and  to  be  chaste.  In  this  they  lied,  as  they  cohabited  with  the 
servants  and  guards  of  the  Sun,  who  were  numerous."  Regarding  Peruvians  in 
general  Pizarro  (1570)  and  Cieza  (Travels,  1532-40)  agree  that  parents  did  not 
care  about  the  conduct  of  their  daughters,  and  Cieza  speaks  of  the  promiscuity 
at  festivals.  Brinton  (J/!  N.  W.,  149)  is  obliged  to  admit  that  "there  is  a  de- 
cided indecency  in  the  remains  of  ancient  American  art,  especially  in  Peru,  and 
great  lubricity  in  many  ceremonies." 


568  HOW   AMERICAN    INDIANS   LOVE 

Adair  relates  of  the  Choktah  (164)  that  even  a  certain  chief 
noted  for  his  cruelty 

"  did  not  attempt  the  virtue  of  his  female  captives  lest  (as  he 
told  one  of  them)  'it  should  offend  the  Indian's  god  ;'  though 
at  the  same  time  his  pleasures  were  heightened  in  proportion 
to  the  shrieks  and  groans  from  prisoners  of  both  sexes  while 
they  were  under  his  torture.  Although  the  Choktah  are 
libidinous,  yet  I  have  known  them  to  take  several  female 
prisoners  without  offering  the  least  violence  to  their  virtue, 
till  the  time  of  purgation  was  expired  ;  then  some  of  them 
forced  their  captives,  notwithstanding  their  pressing  entreat- 
ies and  tears." 

Parkman,  too,  was  convinced  (Jes.  in  Can.,  XXXIV.)  that 
the  remarkable  forbearance  observed  by  some  tribes  was  the 
result  of  superstition  ;  and  he  adds  :  "  To  make  the  Indian 
a  hero  of  romance  is  mere  nonsense." 


INTIMIDATING    CALIFORNIA    SQUAWS 

Besides  the  atrocious  punishments  inflicted  on  women  who 
forgot  their  role  as  private  property,  some  of  the  Indians  had 
other  ways  of  intimidating  them,  while  reserving  for  them- 
selves the  right  to  do  as  they  pleased.  Powers  relates 
(156-61)  that,  among  the  California  Indians  in  general, 

"  there  is  scarcely  such  an  attribute  known  as  virtue  or  chas- 
tity in  either  sex  before  marriage.  Up  to  the  time  when 
they  enter  matrimony  most  of  the  young  women  are  a  kind 
of  femmes  incowprises,  the  common  property  of  the  tribe  ; 
and  after  they  have  once  taken  on  themselves  the  marriage 
covenant,  simple  as  it  is,  they  are  guarded  with  a  Turkish 
jealousy,  for  even  the  married  women  are  not  such  models  as 
Mrs.  Ford.  .  .  .  The  one  great  burden  of  the  harangues 
delivered  by  the  venerable  peace -chief  on  solemn  occasions  is 
the  necessity  and  excellence  of  female  virtue  ;  all  the  terrors 
of  superstitious  sanction  and  the  direst  threats  of  the  great 
prophet  are  levelled  at  unchastity,  and  all  the  most  dreadful 
calamities  and  pains  of  a  future  state  are  hung  suspended 
over  the  heads  of  those  who  are  persistently  lascivious.  All 
the  devices  that  savage  cunning  can  invent,  all  the  myste- 
rious masquerading  horrors  of  devil-raising,  all  the  secret 


GOING   A-CALUMETING  569 

sorceries,  the  frightful  apparitions  and  bugbears,  which  can 
be  supposed  effectual  in  terrifying  women  into  virtue  and 
preventing  smock  treason,  are  resorted  to  by  the  Porno  lead- 
ers." 

Among  these  Porno  Indians,  and  Californian  tribes  almost 
universally  (406),  there  existed  secret  societies  whose  simple 
purpose  was  to  conjure  up  infernal  terrors  and  render  each 
other  assistance  in  keeping  their  women  in  subjection.  A 
special  meeting-house  was  constructed  for  this  purpose,  in 
which  these  secret  women-tamers  held  a  grand  devil-dance 
once  in  seven  years,  twenty  or  thirty  men  daubing  them- 
selves with  barbaric  paint  and  putting  vessels  of  pitch  on 
their  heads.  At  night  they  rushed  down  from  the  mountains 
with  these  vessels  of  pitch  flaming  on  their  heads,  and  mak- 
ing a  terrible  noise.  The  squaws  fled  for  dear  life  ;  hun- 
dreds of  them  clung  screaming  and  fainting  to  their  valorous 
protectors.  Then  the  chief  took  a  rattlesnake  from  which 
the  fangs  had  been  extracted,  brandished  it  into  the  faces  of 
the  shuddering  women,  and  threatened  them  with  dire  things 
if  they  did  not  live  lives  of  chastity,  industry,  and  obedi- 
ence, until  some  of  the  terrified  squaws  shrieked  aloud  and 
fell  swooning  upon  the  ground. 

GOING   A-CALUMETING 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  appreciate  the  unintentional 
humor  of  Ashe's  indignant  outcry,  cited  at  the  beginning  of 
this  chapter,  against  those  who  calumniate  these  innocent 
people  "  by  denying  that  there  is  anything  but  '  brutal  pas- 
sion' in  their  love-affairs.  He  admits,  indeed,  that  "no  ex- 
pressions of  endearment  or  tenderness  ever  escape  the  Indian 
sexes  toward  each  other,"  as  all  observers  have  remarked, 
but  claims  that  this  reserve  is  merely  a  compliance  with  a 
political  and  religious  law  which  "  stigmatizes  youth  wasting 
their  time  in  female  dalliance,  except  when  covered  with  the 
veil  of  night  and  beyond  the  prying  eye  of  man."  Were  a 
man  to  speak  to  a  squaw  of  love  in  the  daytime,  he  adds,  she 
would  run  away  from  him  or  disdain  him.  He  then  pro- 


570  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

ceeds,  with  astounding  naivete,  to  describe  the  nocturnal 
love-making  of  "these  innocent  people."  The  Indians  leave 
their  doors  open  day  and  night,  and  the  lovers  take  advan- 
tage of  this  when  they  go  a-courting,  or  ' '  a-calumeting,"  as 
it  is  called. 

"  A  young  man  lights  his  calumet,  enters  the  cabin  of  his 
mistress,  and  gently  presents  it  to  her.  If  she  extinguishes 
it  she  admits  him  to  her  arms ;  but  if  she  suffer  it  to  burn 
unnoticed  he  softly  retires  with  a  disappointed  and  throbbing 
heart,  knowing  that  while  there  was  light  she  never  could 
consent  to  his  wishes.  This  spirit  of  nocturnal  amour  and 
intrigue  is  attended  by  one  dreadful  practice  :  the  girls  drink 
the  juice  of  a  certain  herb  which  prevents  conception  and 
often  renders  them  barren  through  life.  They  have  recourse 
to  this  to  avoid  the  shame  of  having  a  child — a  circumstance  in 
wliicli  alone  the  disgrace  of  their  conduct  consists,  and  which 
would  be  thought  a  thing  so  heinous  as  to  deprive  them  for- 
ever of  respect  and  religious  marriage  rites.  The  crime  is  in 
the  discovery."  "I  never  saw  gallantry  conducted  with  more 
refinement  than  I  did  during  my  stay  with  the  Shawnee 
nation." 

In  brief,  Ashe's  idea  of  "  refined"  love  consists  in  promis- 
cuous immorality  carefully  concealed  !  "  On  the  subject  of 
love,"  he  sums  up  with  an  injured  air,  "  no  persons  have 
been  less  understood  than  the  Indians."  Yet  this  writer  is 
cited  seriously  as  a  witness  by  Westermarck  and  others  ! 

In  view  of  the  foregoing  facts  every  candid  reader  must 
admit  that  to  an  Indian  an  expression  like  "  Love  hath 
weaned  my  heart  from  low  desires,"  or  Werther's  "  She  is 
sacred  to  me ;  all  desire  is  silent  in  her  presence,"  would  be 
as  incomprehensible  as  Hegel's  metaphysics ;  that,  in  other 
words,  mental  purity,  one  of  the  most  essential  and  charac- 
teristic ingredients  of  romantic  love,  is  always  absent  in  the 
Indian's  infatuation.  The  late  Professor  Brinton  tried  to 
come  to  the  rescue  by  declaring  (E.  A.,  297)  that  "delicacy 
of  sentiment  bears  no  sort  of  constant  relation  to  culture. 
Every  man  .  .  .  can  name  among  his  acquaintances  men 
of  unusual  culture  who  are  coarse  voluptuaries  and  others  of 
the  humblest  education  who  have  the  delicacy  of  a  refined 


SQUAWS   AND    PERSONAL   BEAUTY  571 

woman.  So  it  is  with  families,  and  so  it  is  with  tribes."  Is 
it  ?  That  is  the  point  to  be  proved.  I  myself  have  pointed 
out  that  among  nations,  as  among  individuals,  intellectual 
culture  alone  does  not  insure  a  capacity  for  true  love,  because 
that  also  implies  emotional  and  esthetic  culture.  Now  in 
our  civilized  communities  there  are  all  sorts  of  individuals, 
many  coarse,  a  few  refined,  while  some  civilized  races,  too, 
are  more  refined  than  others.  To  prove  his  point  Dr.  Brin- 
ton  would  have  had  to  show  that  among  the  Indians,  too, 
there  are  tribes  and  individuals  who  are  morally  and  estheti- 
cally  refined  ;  and  this  he  failed  to  do  ;  wherefore  his  argu- 
ment is  futile.  Diligent  and  patient  search  has  not  revealed 
to  me  a  single  exception  to  the  rule  of  depravity  above 
described,  though  I  admit  the  possibility  that  among  the 
Indians  who  have  been  for  generations  under  missionary  con- 
trol such  exceptions  might  be  found.  But  we  are  here  con- 
sidering the  wild  Indian  and  not  the  missionary's  garden 
plant. 

SQUAWS   AND   PERSONAL   BEAUTY 

An  excellent  test  of  the  Indian's  capacity  for  refined  amor- 
ous feeling  may  be  found  in  his  attitude  toward  personal 
beauty.  Does  he  admire  real  beauty,  and  does  it  decide  his 
choice  of  a  mate  ?  That  there  are  good-looking  girls  among 
some  Indian  tribes  cannot  be  denied,  though  they  are  ex- 
ceptional. Among  the  thousands  of  squaws  I  have  seen  on 
the  Pacific  Slope,  from  Mexico  to  Alaska,  I  can  recall  only 
one  whom  I  could  call  really  beautiful.  She  was  a  pupil  at 
a  Sitka  Indian  school,  spoke  English  well,  and  I  suspect  had 
some  white  blood  in  her.  Joaquin  Miller,  who  married  a 
Modoc  girl  and  is  given  to  romancing  and  idealizing,  relates 
(227)  how  "the  brown-eyed  girls  danced,  gay  and  beautiful, 
half-nude,  in  their  rich  black  hair  and  flowing  robes." 
Herbert  Walsh,1  speaking  of  the  girls  at  a  Navajo  Indian 
school,  writes  that  "  among  them  was  one  little  girl  of  strik- 
ing beauty,  with  fine,  dark  eyes,  regularly  and  delicately 

i  Indian  Rights  Asxoc.,  Philadelphia,  1885. 


572  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

modelled  features,  and  a  most  winning  expression.  Nothing 
could  be  more  attractive  than  the  unconscious  grace  of  this 
child  of  nature."  I  can  find  no  indication,  however,  that 
the  Indians  ever  admire  such  exceptional  beauty,  and  plen- 
ty of  evidence  that  what  they  admire  is  not  beautiful. 
"  These  Indians  are  far  from  being  connoisseurs  in  beauty," 
wrote  Mrs.  Eastman  (105)  of  the  Dakotas.  Dobrizhoffer 
says  of  the  Abipones  (II.,  139)  what  we  read  in  Schoolcraft 
concerning  the  Creeks  :  "  Beauty  is  of  no  estimation  in 
either  sex  ; "  and  I  have  also  previously  quoted  Belden's 
testimony  (302),  that  the  men  select  the  squaws  not  for  their 
personal  beauty  but  <(  their  strength  and  ability  to  work  ; " 
to  which  he  should  have  added,  their  weight ;  for  bulk  is 
the  savage's  synonym  for  beauty.  Burton  (C.  $.,  128)  ad- 
mired the  pretty  doll-like  faces  of  the  Sioux  girls,  but  only 
up  to  the  age  of  six.  "  When  full  grown  the  figure  becomes 
dumpy  and  trapu ;  "  and  that  is  what  attracts  the  Indian. 
The  examples  given  in  the  chapter  on  Personal  Beauty  of 
the  Indians'  indifference  to  geological  layers  of  dirt  on 
their  faces  and  bodies  would  alone  prove  beyond  all  pos- 
sibility of  dispute  that  they  can  have  no  esthetic  appre- 
ciation of  personal  charms.  The  very  highest  type  of  Indian 
beauty  is  that  described  by  Powers  in  the  case  of  a  California 
girl  "  just  gliding  out  of  the  uncomfortable  obesity  of  youth, 
her  complexion  a  soft,  creamy  hazel,  her  wide  eyes  dreamy 
and  idle  ...  a  not  unattractive  type  of  vacuous,  facile, 
and  voluptuous  beauty  " — a  beauty,  I  need  not  add,  which 
may  attract,  but  would  not  inspire  love  of  the  sentimental 
kind,  even  if  the  Indian  were  capable  of  it. 

ARE   NORTH   AMERICAN   INDIANS   GALLANT  ? 

Having  failed  to  find  mental  purity  and  admiration  of 
personal  beauty  in  the  Indian's  love-affairs,  let  us  now  see 
how  he  stands  in  regard  to  the  altruistic  impulses  which 
differentiate  love  from  self-love.  Do  Indians  behave  gallant- 
ly toward  their  women  ?  Do  they  habitually  sacrifice  their 
comfort  and,  in  case  of  need,  their  lives  for  their  wives  ? 


ARE  NORTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS  GALLANT?   573 

Dr.  Brinton  declares  (Am.  R.,  48)  that  "the  position  of 
women  in  the  social  scheme  of  the  American  tribes  has  often 
been  portrayed  in  darker  colors  than  the  truth  admits/' 
Another  eminent  American  anthropologist,  Horatio  little, 
wrote  1  that  women  among  the  Indians  and  other  savages  are 
not  treated  with  harshness  or  regarded  as  inferiors  except 
under  special  circumstances.  "  It  is  entirely  a  question  of 
physical  comfort,  and  mainly  of  the  abundance  or  lack  of 
food/'  he  maintains.  For  instance,  among  the  sub-arctic 
Tinneh,  women  are  "  slaves,"  while  among  the  Tinneh 
(Navajos)  of  sunny  Arizona  they  are  "queens."  Hecke- 
welder  declares  (T.  A.  P.  S.,  142)  that  the  labors  of  the 
squaws  "  are  no  more  than  their  fair  share,  under  every  con- 
sideration and  due  allowance,  of  the  hardships  attendant  on 
savage  life."  This  benevolent  and  oft-cited  old  writer  shows 
indeed  such  an  eager  desire  to  whitewash  the  Indian  warrior 
that  an  ignorant  reader  of  his  book  might  find  some  difficulty 
in  restraining  his  indignation  at  the  horrid,  lazy  squaws  for 
not  also  relieving  the  poor,  unprotected  men  of  the  only  two 
duties  which  they  have  retained  for  themselves — murdering 
men  or  animals.  But  the  most  " fearless"  champion  of  the 
noble  red  man  is  a  woman — Rose  Yawger — who  writes  (in 
The  Indian  and  the  Pioneer,  42)  that  "  the  position  of  the 
Indian  woman  in  her  nation  was  not  greatly  inferior  to  that 
enjoyed  by  the  American  woman  of  to-day."  .  .  .  "  They 
were  treated  with  great  respect."  Let  us  confront  these  asser- 
tions with  facts. 

Beginning  with  the  Pacific  Coast,  we  are  told  by  Powers 
(405)  that,  on  the  whole,  California  Indians  did  not  make 
such  slaves  of  women  as  the  Indians  of  the  Atlantic  side  of  the 
continent.  This,  however,  is  merely  comparative,  and  does 
not  mean  that  they  treat  them  kindly,  for,  as  he  himself  says 
(23),  "while  on  a  journey  the  man  lays  far  the  greatest  bur- 
dens on  his  wife."  On  another  page  (406)  he  remarks  that 
while  a  California  boy  is  not  "  taught  to  pierce  his  mother's 
flesh  with  an  arrow  to  show  him  his  superiority  over  her,  as 
among  the  Apaches  and  Iroquois,"  he  nevertheless  afterward 

1  Jonrn.  Anthrop.  Inst.,  1892,  427. 


574  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

' '  slays  his  wife  or  mother-in-law,  if  angry,  with  very  little 
compunction."  Colonel  McKee,  in  describing  an  expedition 
among  California  Indians  (Schoolcraft,  III.,  127),  writes  : 
"  One  of  the  whites  here,  in  breaking  in  his  squaw  to  her 
household  duties,  had  occasion  to  beat  her  several  times.  She 
complained  of  this  to  her  tribe  and  they  informed  him  that 
he  must  not  do  so  ;  if  he  was  dissatisfied,  let  him  kill  her  and 
take  another  !  "  "  The  men,"  he  adds,  "  allow  themselves 
the  privilege  of  shooting  any  woman  they  are  tired  of."  The 
Porno  Indians  make  it  a  special  point  to  slaughter' the  women 
of  their  enemies  during  or  after  battle.  "  They  do  this  be- 
cause, as  they  argue  with  the  greatest  sincerity,  one  woman 
destroyed  is  tantamount  to  five  men  killed"  (Bancroft,  I., 
160),  for  without  women  the  tribe  cannot  multiply.  A 
Modoc  explained  why  he  needed  several  wives — one  to  take 
care  of  his  house,  a  second  to  hunt  for  him,  a  third  to  dig 
roots  (259).  Bancroft  cites  half  a  dozen  authorities  for  the 
assertion  that  among  the  Indians  of  Northern  California 
"  boys  are  disgraced  by  work  "  and  "  women  work  while  men 
gamble  or  sleep"  (I.,  351).  John  Muir,  in  his  recent  work 
on  The  Mountains  of  California  (80),  says  it  is  truly  aston- 
ishing to  see  what  immense  loads  the  haggard  old  Pah  Ute 
squaws  make  out  to  carry  bare-footed  over  the  rugged  passes. 
The  men,  who  are  always  with  them,  stride  on  erect  and  un- 
burdened, but  when  they  come  to  a  difficult  place  they 
"  kindly "  pile  stepping-stones  for  their  patient  pack-ani- 
mal wives,  "  just  as  they  would  prepare  the  way  for  their 
ponies." 

Among  some  of  the  Klamath  and  other  California  tribes 
certain  women  are  allowed  to  attain  the  rank  of  priestesses. 
To  be  "  supposed  to  have  communication  with  the  devil "  and 
be  alone  "  potent  over  cases  of  witchcraft  and  witch  poison- 
ing" (67)  is,  however,  an  honor  which  women  elsewhere 
would  hardly  covet.  Among  the  Yurok,  Powers  relates  (56), 
when  a  young  man  cannot  afford  to  pay  the  amount  of  shell- 
money  without  which  marriage  is  not  considered  legal,  he  is 
sometimes  allowed  to  pay  half  the  sum  and  become  what  is 
termed  (f  half-married."  "Instead  of  bringing  her  to  his 


ARE   NORTH   AMERICAN  INDIANS  GALLANT?    575 

cabin  and  making  her  his  slave,  he  goes  to  live  in  her  cabin 
and  becomes  her  slave."  This,  however,  "  occurs  only  in  case 
of  soft  uxorious  fellows/'  Sometimes,  too,  a  squaw  will  take 
the  law  in  her  own  hands,  as  in  a  case  mentioned  by  the 
same  writer  (199).  A  Wappo  Indian  abandoned  his  wife  and 
went  down  the  river  to  a  ranch  where  he  took  another  wom- 
an. But  the  lawful  spouse  soon  discovered  his  whereabouts, 
followed  him  up,  confronted  him  before  his  paramour,  up- 
braided him  fiercely,  and  then  seized  him  by  the  hair  and 
led  him  away  triumphantly  to  her  bed  and  basket.  It  is  to 
check  such  unseemly  "new-womanish"  tendencies  in  their 
squaws  that  the  Californians  resorted  to  the  bugaboo  per- 
formances  already  referred  to.  The  Central  Californian 
women,  says  Bancroft  (391),  are  more  apt  than  the  others  to 
rebel  against  the  tyranny  of  their  masters ;  but  the  men 
usually  manage  to  keep  them  in  subjection.  The  Tatu 
and  Porno  tribes  intimidate  them  in  this  way  :  "A  man  is 
stripped  naked,  painted  with  red  and  black  stripes,  and  then 
at  night  takes  a  sprig  of  poison  oak,  dips  it  in  water,  and 
sprinkles  it  on  the  squaws,  who,  from  its  effects  on  their 
skins,  are  convinced  of  the  man's  satanic  power,  so  that  his 
object  is  attained."  (Powers,  141.) 

The  pages  of  Bancroft  contain  many  references  besides 
those  already  quoted,  showing  how  far  the  Indians  of  Cali- 
fornia were  from  treating  their  women  with  chivalrous,  self- 
sacrificing  devotion.  "  The  principal  labor  falls  to  the  lot  of 
the  women"  (I.,  351).  Among  the  Gallinomeros,  "as  usual, 
the  women  are  treated  with  great  contempt  by  the  men,  and 
forced  to  do  all  the  hard  and  menial  work  ;  they  are  not 
even  allowed  to  sit  at  the  same  fire  or  eat  at  the  same  repast 
with  their  lords  "  (390).  Among  the  Shoshones  "  the  weaker 
sex  of  course  do  the  hardest  labor"  (437),  etc.  With  the 
Hupa  a  girl  will  bring  in  the  market  $15  to  $50 — "  about 
half  the  valuation  of  a  man."  (Powers,  85.) 

Nor  do  matters  mend  if  we  proceed  northward  on  the 
Pacific  coast.  Thus,  Gibbs  says  (198)  of  the  Indians  of 
Western  Oregon  and  Washington,  "the  condition  of  the 
woman  is  that  of  slavery  under  any  circumstances  ; "  and 


576  HOW   AMERICAN    INDIANS   LOVE 

similar  testimony  might  be  adduced  regarding   the  Indians 
of  British  Columbia  and  Alaska. 

Among  the  eastern  neighbors  of  the  Californians  there  is 
one  Indian  people — the  Navajos  of  Arizona  and  New  Mexico 
— that  calls  for  special  attention,  as  its  women,  according  to 
Horatio  Hale,  are  not  slaves  but  "  queens."  The  Navajos 
have  lived  for  centuries  in  a  rich  and  fertile  country  ;  their 
name  is  said  to  mean  "large  cornfields "  and  the  Spaniards 
found,  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  that  they 
practised  irrigation.  A  more  recent  writer,  E.  A.  Graves,1 
says  that  the  Navajos  "possess  more  wealth  than  all  the 
wild  tribes  in  New  Mexico  combined.  They  are  rich  in 
horses,  mules,  asses,  goats,  and  sheep."  Bancroft  cites  evi- 
dence (I.,  513)  that  the  women  were  the  owners  of  the  sheep  ; 
that  they  were  allowed  to  take  their  meals  with  the  men,  and 
admitted  to  their  councils  ;  and  that  they  were  relieved  of 
the  drudgery  of  menial  work.  Major  E.  Backus  also  noted 
(Schoolcraft,  IV.,  214)  that  Navajo  women  "are  treated 
more  kindly  than  the  squaws  of  the  northern  tribes,  and  per- 
form far  less  of  laborious  work  than  the  Sioux  or  Chippewa 
women."  But  when  we  examine  the  facts  more  closely  we 
find  that  this  comparative  "  emancipation  "  of  the  Navajo 
women  was  not  a  chivalrous  concession  on  the  part  of  the 
men,  but  .proceeded  simply  from  the  lack  of  occasion  for  the 
exercise  of  their  selfish  propensities.  No  one  would  be  so 
foolish  as  to  say  that  even  the  most  savage  Indian  would  put 
his  squaw  into  the  treadmill  merely  for  the  fun  of  seeing  her 
toil.  He  makes  a  drudge  of  her  in  order  to  save  himself  the 
trouble  of  working.  Now  the  Navajos  were  rich  enough  to 
employ  slaves  ;  their  labor,  says  Major  Backus,  was  "mostly 
performed  by  the  poor  dependants,  both  male  and  female." 
Hence  there  was  no  reason  for  making  slaves  of  their  wives. 
Backus  gives  another  reason  why  these  women  were  treated 
more  kindly  than  other  squaws.  After  marriage  they  became 
free,  for  sufficient  cause,  to  leave  their  husbands,  who  were 
thus  put  on  their  good  behavior.  Before  marriage,  how- 
ever, they  had  no  free  choice,  but  were  the  property  of  their 

1  Indian  Com.  Rep.,  1854,  p.  179. 


ARE  NORTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS  GALLANT?   577 

fathers.  "  The  consent  of  the  father  is  absolute,  and  the 
one  so  purchased  assents  or  is  taken  away  by  force."  1 

A  total  disregard  of  these  women's  feelings  was  also 
shown  in  the  "  very  extensive  prevalence  of  polygamy,"  and 
in  the  custom  that  the  wife  last  chosen  was  always  mistress 
of  her  predecessors.  (Bancroft,  I.,  512.)  But  the  utter  in- 
capacity of  Navajo  men  for  sympathetic,  gallant,  chival- 
rous sentiment  is  most  glaringly  revealed  by  the  barbarous 
treatment  of  their  female  captives,  who,  as  before  stated, 
were  often  shot  or  delivered  up  for  indiscriminate  violence. 
Where  such  a  custom  prevails  as  a  national  institution  it 
would  be  useless  to  search  for  refined  feeling  toward  any 
woman.  Indeed,  the  Navajo  women  themselves  rendered 
the  growth  of  refined  sexual  feeling  impossible  by  their  con- 
duct. They  were  notorious,  even  among  Indians,  for  their 
immodesty  and  lewd  conduct,  and  were  consequently  in- 
capable of  either  feeling  or  inspiring  any  but  the  coarsest 
sensual  passion.  They  were  not  queens,  as  the  astonishing 
Hate  would  have  it,  but  they  certainly  were  queans. 

Concerning  other  Indians  of  the  Southwest  —  Yumas, 
Mojaves,  Pueblos,  etc. — M.  A.  Dorchester  writes  :  *  "  The 
native  Indian  is  naturally  polite,  but  until  touched  by  civiliza- 
tion, it  never  occurred  to  him  to  be  polite  to  his  wife."  "  If 
there  is  one  drawback  to  Indian  civilization  more  difficult  to 
overcome  than  any  other,  it  is  to  convince  the  Indian  that  he 
ought  not  to  put  the  hardest  work  upon  the  Indian  women." 
The  ferocious  Apaches  make  slaves  of  their  women.  (Ban- 
croft, I.,  512.)  Among  the  Comanches  "  the  women  do  all  the 
menial  work/'  The  husband  has  the  pleasant  excitement  of 
killing  the  game,  while  the  women  do  the  hard  work  even 
here  :  "  they  butcher  and  transport  the  meat,  dress  the  skins, 
etc."  "  The  females  are  abused  and  often  beaten  unmercifully." 
(Schoolcraft,  I.,  236,  V.,  G84.)'  The  Moquis  squaws  were  ex- 
empt from  field  labor  not  from  chivalrous  feelings  but  because 
the  men  feared  amorous  intrigues.  (Waltz,  IV.,  209.)  A 
Snake,  Lewis  and  Clarke  found  (308),  "  would  consider  him- 

1  Bristol  in  hid.  Aff.  Rep.  Spec.  Com.,  1807,  p.  357. 
*Rep.  Coin.  Ind.  4f-i  18<J''i  P-  60?- 


578  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

self  degraded  by  being  compelled  to  walk  any  distance ;  and 
were  he  so  poor  as  to  possess  only  two  horses,  he  would  ride 
the  best  of  them,  and  leave  the  other  for  his  wives  and  chil- 
dren and  their  baggage  ;  and  if  he  has  too  many  wives  or  too 
much  baggage  for  the  horse,  the  wives  have  no  alternative 
but  to  follow  him  on  foot." 

Turning  to  the  great  Dakota  or  Sioux  stock,  we  run  against 
one  of  the  most  naive  of  the  sentimentalists,  Catlin,  who 
perpetrated  several  books  on  the  Indians  and  made  many 
"  fearless  "  assertions  about  the  red  men  in  general  and  the 
Mandans  in  particular.  G.  E.  Ellis,  in  his  book,  The  Red 
Man  and  the  White  Man  (101),  justly  observes  of  Oatlin  that 
"  he  writes  more  like  a  child  than  a  well-balanced  man,"  and 
Mitchell  (in  Schoolcraft,  III.,  254)  declares  that  much  of 
what  Catlin  wrote  regarding  the  Mandans  existed  "  entirely 
in  the  fertile  imagination  of  that  gentleman."  Yet  this  does 
not  prevent  eminent  anthropologists  like  Westermarck  (359) 
from  soberly  quoting  Catlin's  declaration  that  "  it  would  be 
untrue  and  doing  injustice  to  the  Indians,  to  say  that  they 
were  in  the  least  behind  us  in  conjugal,  in  filial,  and  in  pa- 
ternal affection "  (L.  N.  N.  A.  L,  L,  121).  There  is  only 
one  way  of  gauging  a  man's  affection,  and  that  is  by  his  ac- 
tions. Now  how,  according  to  Catlin  himself,  does  an  Indian 
act  toward  his  wife  ?  Even  among  the  Mandans,  so  superior 
to  the  other  Indians  he  visited,  he  found  that  the  women, 
however  attractive  or  hungry  they  might  be,  "  are  not  allowed 
to  sit  in  the  same  group  with  the  men  while  at  their  meals. 
So  far  as  I  have  yet  travelled  in  the  Indian  country  I  have 
never  seen  an  Indian  woman  eating  with  her  husband.  Men 
form  the  first  group  at  the  banquet,  and  women  and  children 
and  dogs  all  come  together  at  the  next."  Men  first,  women 
and  dogs  next — yet  they  are  "  not  in  the  least  behind  us  in 
conjugal  affection  !"  With  his  childish  disregard  of  logic 
and  lack  of  a  sense  of  humor  Catlin  goes  on  to  tell  us  that 
Mandan  women  lose  their  beauty  soon  because  of  their  early 
marriages  and  "  the  slavish  life  they  lead."  In  many  cases, 
he  adds,  the  inclinations  of  the  girl  are  not  considered  in 
marriage,  the  father  selling  her  to  the  highest  bidder. 


ARE  NORTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS  GALLANT?   579 

Maiidan  conjugal  affection,  "just  like  ours/'  is  further 
manifested  by  the  custom,  previously  referred  to,  which 
obliges  mourning  women  to  crop  off  all  their  hair,  while  of  a 
man's  locks,  which  "are  of  much  greater  importance/'  only 
one  or  two  can  be  spared.  (Catlin,  I.  c.,  I.,  95,  119,  121  ;  II., 
123.)  An  amusing  illustration  of  the  Mandan's  supercilious 
contempt  for  women,  also  by  Catlin,  will  be  given  later.1 

The  Sioux  tribes  in  general  have  always  been  notorious  for 
the  brutal  treatment  of  their  women.  Mrs.  Eastman,  who 
wrote  a  book  on  their  customs,  once  received  an  offer  of  mar- 
riage from  a  chief  who  had  a  habit  of  expending  all  his  sur- 
plus bad  temper  upon  his  wives.  He  had  three  of  them,  but 
was  willing  to  give  them  all  up  if  she  would  live  with  him. 
She  refused,  as  she  "  did  not  fancy  having  her  head  split  open 
every  few  days  with  a  stick  of  wood."  G.  P.  Belden,  who  also 
knew  the  Sioux  thoroughly,  having  lived  among  them  twelve 
years,  wrote  (270,  303-5)  that  ' ( the  days  of  her  childhood  are 
the  only  happy  or  pleasant  days  the  Indian  girl  ever  knows/' 
"  From  the  day  of  her  marriage  [in  which  she  has  no  choice] 
until  her  death  she  leads  a  most  wretched  life."  The  women 
are  "  the  servants  of  servants."  "  On  a  winter  day  the  Sioux 
mother  is  often  obliged  to  travel  eight  or  ten  miles  and  carry 
her  lodge,  camp-kettle,  ax,  child,  and  several  small  dogs  on 
her  back  and  head."  She  has  to  build  the  camp,  cook,  take 
care  of  the  children,  and  even  of  the  pony  on  which  her  lazy 
and  selfish  husband  has  ridden  while  she  tramped  along  with 
all  those  burdens.  "  So  severe  is  their  treatment  of  women, 
a  happy  female  face  is  hardly  ever  seen  in  the  Sioux  nation." 
Many  become  callous,  and  take  a  beating  much  as  a  horse  or 
ox  does."  "  Suicide  is  very  common  among  Indian  women, 
and,  considering  the  treatment  they  receive,  it  is  a  wonder 
there  is  not  more  of  it."2 

1  Even  the  wives  of  chiefs  were  treated  no  better  than  slaves.     Catlin  himself 
tells  us  of  the  six  wives  of  a  Mandan  chief  who  were  "  not  allowed  to  speak, 
though  they  were  in  readiness  to  obey  his  orders."   (Smithson.  Rep..  1885,  Pt.  II., 
458.) 

2  Such  cruel  treatment  of  women  argues  a  total  lack  of  sympathy  in  Indians, 
and  without  sympathy  there  can  be  no  love.     The  systematic  manner  in  which 
sympathy  is  crushed  among  Indians  I  have  described    in  a  previous  chapter. 
Here  let  me  add  a  few  remarks  by  Theodore  Roosevelt  (I.,  86)  which  coincide 
with  what  John  Hance,  the  famous  Arizona  guide,  told  me :  "  Anyone  who  has 


580  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS    LOVE 

Burton  attests  (C.  8.,  125,  130,  60)  that  "the  squaw  is  a 
mere  slave,  living  a  life  of  utter  drudgery."  The  husbands 
"care  little  for  their  wives."  "The  drudgery  of  the  tent 
and  field  renders  the  squaw  cold  and  unimpassioned."  "  The 
son  is  taught  to  make  his  mother  toil  for  him."  "  One  can 
hardly  expect  a  smiling  countenance  from  the  human  biped 
trudging  ten  or  twenty  miles  under  a  load  fit  for  a  mule." 
"  Dacotah  females,"  writes  Neill  (82,  85),  "  deserve  the  sym- 
pathy of  every  tender  heart.  From  early  childhood  they  lead 
worse  than  a  dog's  life.  Uncultivated  and  treated  like  brutes, 
they  are  prone  to  suicide,  and,  when  desperate,  they  act  more 
like  infuriated  beasts  than  creatures  of  reason." 

Of  the  Crow  branch  of  the  Dakotas,  Catliu  wrote  :  1  "  They 
are,  like  all  other  Indian  women,  the  slaves  of  their  husbands 
and  not  allowed  to  join  in  their  religious  rites  and 
ceremonies,  nor  in  the  dance  or  other  amusements."  All  of 
which  is  delightfully  consistent  with  this  writer's  assertion 
that  the  Indians  are  "  not  in  the  least  behind  us  in  conju- 
gal affection."2 

In  his  Travels  Through  the  Northwest  Regions  of  the  United 
States  Schoolcraft  thus  sums  up  (231)  his  observations  :  "  Of 
the  state  of  female  society  among  the  Northern  Indians  I 
shall  say  little,  because  on  a  review  of  it  I  find  very  little  to 
admire,  either  in  their  collective  morality,  or  personal  en- 

ever  been  in  an  encampment  of  wild  Indians  and  has  had  the  misfortune  to 
witness  the  delight  the  children  take  in  torturing  little  animals  will  admit  that 
the  Indian's  love  of  cruelty  for  cruelty's  sake  cannot  possibly  be  exaggerated. 
The  young  are  so  trained  that  when  old  they  shall  find  their  keenest  pleasure  in 
inflecting  pain  in  its  most  appalling  form.  Among  the  most  brutal  white  bor- 
derers a  man  would  be  instantly  lynched  if  he  practiced  on  any  creature  the 
fiendish  torture  which  in  the  Indian  camp  either  attracts  no  notice  at  all,  or 
else  excites  merely  laughter."  (See  also  Roosevelt's  remarks — 87,  331,  335  on 
Helen  Hunt  Jackson's  Century  of  Dishonor. )  The  Indian  was  much  wronged 
by  unprincipled  agents  and  others,  hut  the  border  ruffians  served  him  only  as 
he  served  others  of  his  race,  the  weaker  being  always  driven  out.  Nor  was 
there  any  real  sympathy  within  the  tribes  themselves.  "  These  people,"  wrote 
the  old  Jesuit  missionary  Le  Jeune  (VI.,  245),  'l  are  very  little  moved  by  com- 
passion. They  give  a  sick  person  food  and  drink,  but  show  otherwise  no  con- 
cern for  him  ;  to  coax  him  with  love  and  tenderness  is  a  language  which  they 
do  not  understand.  When  he  refuses  food  they  kill  him,  partly  to  relieve  him 
from  suffering,  partly  to  relieve  themselves  of  the  trouble  of  taking  him  with 
them  when  they  go  to  some  other  place." 

'  Smithsonian  Rep.,  1885,  Pt.  II.,  108. 

2  The  humor  of  Catlin's  assertions  becomes  more  obvious  still  when  we  read 
how  readily  Indians  dissolve  their  marriages,  through  love  of  change,  caprice, 
etc.  See  cases  in  Westermarck,  518. 


ARE   NORTH  AMERICAN   INDIANS  GALLANT?   581 

dowments.  .  .  .  Doomed  to  drudgery  and  hardships 
from  infancy  .  .  .  without  either  mental  resources  or 
personal  beauty — what  can  be  said  in  favor  of  the  Indian 
women  ?"  A  French  author,  Eugene  A.  Vail,  writes  an  in- 
teresting summary  (207-14)  of  the  realistic  descriptions  given 
by  older  writers  of  the  brutal  treatment  to  which  the  women 
of  the  Northern  Indians  were  subjected.  He  refers,  among 
other  things,  to  the  efforts  made  by  Governor  Cass,  of  Michi- 
gan, to  induce  the  Indians  to  treat  their  women  more  hu- 
manely ;  but  all  persuasion  was  in  vain,  and  the  governor 
finally  had  to  resort  to  punishment.  He  also  refers  to  the 
selfish  ingenuity  with  which  the  men  succeeded  in  persuad- 
ing the  foolish  squaws  that  it  would  be  a  disgrace  for  their 
lords  and  masters  to  do  any  Work,  and  that  polygamy  was  a 
desirable  thing.  The  men  took  as  many  wives  as  they  pleased, 
and  if  one  of  them  remonstrated  against  a  new  rival,  she  re- 
ceived a  sound  thrashing. 

In  Franklin's  Journey  to  the  Shores  of  the  Polar  Sea  we 
are  informed  (160)  that  the  women  are  obliged  to  drag  the 
heavily  laden  sledges:  "  Nothing  can  more  shock  the  feel- 
ings of  a  person  accustomed  to  civilized  life  than  to  witness 
the  state  of  their  degradation.  When  a  party  is  on  a  march 
the  women  have  to  drag  the  tent,  the  meat,  and  whatever  the 
hunter  possesses,  whilst  he  only  carries  his  gun  and  medicine 
case."  When  the  men  have  killed  any  large  beast,  says 
Ilearne  (90),  the  women  are  always  sent  to  carry  it  to  the  tent. 
They  have  to  prepare  and  cook  it,  "  and  when  it  is  done  the 
wives  and  daughters  of  the  greatest  captains  in  the  country 
are  never  served  till  all  the  males,  even  those  who  are  in  the 
capacity  of  servants,  have  eaten  what  they  think  proper." 
Of  the  Chippewas,  Keating  says  (II.,  153),  that  "frequently 
.  .  .  their  brutal  conduct  to  their  wives  produces  abor- 
tions." 

A  friend  of  the  Blackfoot  Indians,  G.  B.  Grinnell,  relates 
(184,  216)  that,  while  boys  play  and  do  as  they  please,  a  girl's 
duties  begin  at  an  early  age,  and  she  soon  does  all  a  woman's 
"and  so  menial"  work.  Their  fathers  select  husbands  for 
them  and,  if  they  disobey,  have  a  right  to  beat  or  even  kill 


582  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

them.  "  As  a  consequence  of  this  severity,  suicide  was 
quite  common  among  the  Blackfoot  girls/' 

A  passage  in  William  Wood's  New  England  Prospect, 
published  in  1634,1  throws  light  on  the  aboriginal  condition 
of  Indian  women  in  that  region.  Wood  refers  to  "  the  cus- 
tomarie  churlishnesse  and  salvage  inhumanitie  "  of  the  men. 
The  Indian  women,  he  says,  are 

"more  loving,  pittiful  and  modest,  milde,  provident,  and 
laborious  than  their  lazie  husbands.  .  .  .  Since  the  Eng- 
lish arrivall  comparison  hath  made  them  miserable,  for  seeing 
the  kind  usage  of  the  English  to  their  wives,  they  doe  as 
much  condemne  their  husbands  for  unkindnesse  and  com- 
mend the  English  for  love,  as  their  husbands,  commending 
themselves  for  their  wit  in  keeping  their  wives  industrious, 
doe  condemn  the  English  for  their  folly  in  spoiling  good 
working  creatures." 

Concerning  the  intelligent,  widely  scattered,  and  numer- 
ous Iroquois,  Morgan,  who  knew  them  more  intimately  than 
anyone  else,  wrote  (322),  that  "  the  Indian  regarded  woman 
as  the  inferior,  the  dependent,  and  the  servant  of  man,  and, 
from  nature  and  habit,  she  actually  considered  herself  to  be 
so."  " Adultery  was  punished  by  whipping;  but  the  pun- 
ishment was  inflicted  on  the  woman  alone,  who  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  only  offender"  (331).  "Female  life  among 
the  Hurons  had  no  bright  side,"  wrote  Parkman  (J.  G., 
XXXIII.).  After  marriage,  "the  Huron  woman  from  a 
wanton  became  a  drudge  ...  in  the  words  of  Cham- 
plain,  '  their  women  were  their  mules/  The  natural  result 
followed.  In  every  Huron  town  were  shrivelled  hags,  hid- 
eous and  despised,  who,  in  vindictiveness,  ferocity,  and  cru- 
elty, far  exceeded  the  men."  The  Jesuit  Relations  contain 
many  references  to  the  merciless  treatment  of  their  women 
by  the  Canadian  Indians.  "  These  poor  women  are  real  pack- 
mules,  enduring  all  hardships."  "In  the  winter,  when  they 
break  camp,  the  women  drag  the  heaviest  loads  over  the 
snow  ;  in  short,  the  men  seem  to  have  as  their  share  only 
hunting,  war,  and  trading  (IV.,  205).  "  The  women  here 

1  Cited  by  Schoolcraft,  Oneota,  57. 


ARE   NORTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS  GALLANT?   583 

are  mistresses  and  servants"  (Hurons,  XV.).  In  volume 
III.  of  the  Jesuit  Relations  (101),  Biard  writes  under  date 
of  1616  : 

"  These  poor  creatures  endure  all  the  misfortunes  and  hard- 
ships of  life  ;  they  prepare  and  erect  the  houses,  or  cabins, 
furnishing  them  with  fire,  wood,  and  water  ;  prepare  the 
food,  preserve  the  meat  and  other  provisions,  that  is,  dry 
them  in  the  smoke  to  preserve  them  ;  go  to  bring  the  game 
from  the  place  where  it  has  been  killed  ;  sew  and  repair  the 
canoes,  mend  and  stitch .  the  skins,  curry  them  and  make 
clothes  and  shoes  of  them  for  the  whole  family ;  they  go 
fishing  and  do  the  rowing  ;  in  short,  undertake  all  the  work 
except  that  alone  of  the  grand  chase,  besides  having  the  care 
and  so  weakening  nourishment  of  the  children. 

"Now  these  women,  although  they  have  so  much  trouble, 
as  I  have  said,  yet  are  not  cherished  any  more  for  it.  The 
husbands  beat  them  unmercifully,  and  often  for  a  very  slight 
cause.  One  day  a  certain  Frenchman  undertook  to  rebuke 
a  savage  for  this  ;  the  savage  answered,  angrily  :  '  How  now, 
have  you  nothing  to  do  but  to  see  into  my  house,  every  time 
I  strike  my  dog  ? ' } 

Surely  Dr.  Brinton  erred  grievously  when  he  wrote,  in  his 
otherwise  admirable  book,  The  American  Race  (49),  that  the 
fatigues  of  the  Indian  women  were  scarce  greater  than  those  of 
their  husbands,  nor  their  life  more  onerous  than  that  of  the 
peasant  women  of  Europe  to-day."  Peasants  in  Europe  work 
quite  as  hard  as  their  wives,  whereas  the  Indian — except  dur- 
ing the  delightful  hunting  period,  or  in  war-time,  which, 
though  frequent,  was  after  all  merely  episodic — did  nothing 
at  all,  and  considered  labor  a  disgrace  to  a  man,  fit  only  for 
women.  The  difference  between  the  European  peasant  and 
the  American  red  man  can  be  inferred  by  anyone  from  what 
observers  reported  of  the  Creek  Indians  of  our  Southern 
States  (Schoolcraft,  V.,  272-77): 

"  The  summer  season,  with  the  men,  is  devoted  to  war,  or 
their  domestic  amusements  of  riding,  horse-hunting,  ball- 
plays,  and  dancing,  and  by  the  women  to  their  customary 
hard  labor." 

"  The  women  perform  all  the  labor,  both  in  the  house  and 
field,  and  are,  in  fact,  but  slaves  to  the  men,  without  any  will 
of  their  own,  except  in  the  management  of  the  children." 


584  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS  LOVE 

"  A  stranger  going  into  the  country  must  feel  distressed 
when  he  sees  naked  women  bringing  in  huge  burdens  of  wood 
on  their  shoulders,  or,  bent  under  the  scorching  sun,  at  hard 
labor  in  the  field,  while  the  indolent,  robust  young  men  are 
riding  about,  or  stretched  at  ease  on  some  scaffold,  amusing' 
themselves  with  a  pipe  or  a  whistle." 

The  excesses  to  which  bias  and  unintelligent  philanthropy 
can  lead  a  man  are  lamentably  illustrated  in  the  writings  of 
the  Moravian  missionary,  Heckewelder,  regarding  the  Dela- 
ware Indians.1  He  argues  that  "  as  women  are  not  obliged 
to  live  with  their  husbands  any  longer  than  suits  their  pleas- 
ure or  convenience,  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  they  would 
submit  to  be  loaded  with  unjust  or  unequal  burdens "(!) 
"  Were  a  man  to  take  upon  himself  a  part  of  his  wife's  duty, 
in  addition  to  his  own  [hunting  (!),  for  the  Delawares  were 
then  a  peaceful  tribe],  he  must  necessarily  sink  under  the 
load,  and  of  course  his  family  must  suffer  with  him."  The 
heartless  sophistry  of  this  reasoning — heartless  because  of  its 
pitiless  disregard  of  the  burdens  and  sufferings  of  the  poor 
women — is  exposed  in  part  by  his  own  admissions  regarding 
the  selfish  actions  of  the  men.  He  does  not  deny  that  after 
the  women  have  harvested  their  corn  or  maple  sugar  the  men 
abrogate  the  right  to  dispose  of  it  as  they  please.  He  relates 
that  in  case  of  a  domestic  quarrel  the  husband  shoulders  his 
gun  and  goes  away  a  week  or  so.  The  neighbors  naturally 
say  that  his  wife  is  quarrelsome.  All  the  odium  conse- 
quently falls  on  her,  and  when  he  gets  back  she  is  only  too 
willing  to  drudge  for  him  more  than  ever.  Heckewelder 
naively  gives  the  Indian's  recipe  for  getting  a  useful  wife  : 

"  Indian,  when  he  see  industrious  squaw,  which  he  like,  he 
go  to  him  [her],  place  his  two  forefingers  close  aside  each 
other,  make  two  look  like  one— see  him  [her]  smile — which 
is  all  he  [she]  say,  yes!  so  he  take  him  [her]  home.  Squaw 
know  too  well  what  Indian  do  if  he  [she]  cross  !  Throw  him 
[her]  away  and  take  another  !  Squaw  love  to  eat  meat  !  no 
husband  !  no  meat  !  Squaw  do  everything  to  please  hus- 
band !  he  do  same  to  please  squaw  [??]  !  live  happy." 

1  Transactions  of  the  American  PJiilosophical  Society.     Philadelphia,  1819. 


ARE  NORTH  AMERICAN   INDIANS  GALLANT?    585 

When  that  Indian  said  "  he  do  the  same  to  please  the 
squaw,"  he  must  have  chuckled  at  his  own  sarcasm.  Hecke- 
welder  does,  indeed,  mention  a  few  instances  of  kindness  to  a 
wife  (e.g.,  going  a  great  distance  to  get  some  berries  which 
she,  in  a  pregnant  state,  eagerly  desired)  ;  but  these  were  ob- 
viously exceptional,  as  I  have  found  nothing  like  them  in 
other  records  of  Indian  life.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  as 
Roosevelt  remarks  (97)  these  Indians,  under  the  influence  of 
the  Moravian  missionaries,  had  been  "  transformed  in  one 
generation  from  a  restless,  idle,  blood-thirsty  people  of  hunt- 
ers and  fishers  into  an  orderly,  thrifty,  industrious  folk  ;  be- 
lieving with  all  their  hearts  the  Christian  religion."  It  was 
impossible,  however,  to  drive  out  the  devil  entirely,  as  the 
facts  cited  show,  and  as  we  may  infer  from  what,  according 
to  Loskiel,  was  true  a  century  ago  of  the  Delawares  as  well  as 
the  Iroquois  :  "  Often  it  happens  that  an  Indian  deserts  his 
wife  because  she  has  a  child  to  suckle,  and  marries  another 
whom  he  presently  abandons  for  the  same  reason."  In  this 
respect,  however,  the  women  are  not  much  better  than  the 
men,  for,  as  he  adds,  they  often  desert  a  husband  who  has  no 
more  presents  to  give  them,  and  go  with  another  who  has. 
Truly  Catlin  was  right  when  he  said  that  the  Indians  (and 
these  were  the  best  of  them)  were  "  not  in  the  least  behind  us 
in  conjugal  affection  I" 

Thus  do  even  the  apparent  exceptions  to  Indian  maltreat- 
ment of  women — which  exceptions  are  constantly  cited  as 
illustrations  of  the  rule — melt  away  like  mists  when  sunlight 
is  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  One  more  of  these  exceptions, 
of  which  sly  sentimentalists  have  made  improper  use,  must 
be  referred  to  here.  It  is  maintained,  on  the  authority  of 
Charlevoix,  that  the  women  of  the  Natchez  Indians  asserted 
their  rights  and  privileges  even  above  those  of  the  men,  for 
they  were  allowed  to  put  unfaithful  husbands  to  death  while 
they  themselves  could  have  as  many  paramours  as  they  pleased. 
Moreover,  the  husband  had  to  stand  in  a  respectful  posture 
in  the  presence  of  his  wife,  was  not  allowed  to  eat  with  her, 
and  had  to  salute  her  in  the  same  way  as  the  servants.  This, 
truly,  would  be  a  remarkable  sociological  fact — if  it  were  a 


586  HOW    AMERICAN    INDIANS    LOVE 

fact.  But  upon  referring  to  the  pages  of  Charlevoix  (264) 
we  find  that  these  statements,  while  perfectly  true,  do  not 
refer  to  the  Natchez  women  in  general,  but  only  to  the  prin- 
cesses, or  "female  suns/'  These  were  allowed  to  marry  none 
but  private  men ;  but  by  way  of  compensation  they  had  the 
right  to  discard  their  husbands  whenever  they  pleased  and  take 
another.  The  other  women  had  no  more  privileges  than  the 
squaws  of  other  tribes  ;  whenever  a  chief  saw  a  girl  he  liked 
he  simply  informed  the  relatives  of  the  fact  and  enrolled  her 
among  the  number  of  his  wives.  Charlevoix  adds  that  he  knew 
of  no  nation  in  America  where  the  women  were  more  un- 
chaste. The  privileges  conferred  on  the  princesses  thus  ap- 
pear like  a  coarse,  topsy-turvy  joke,  while  affording  one  more 
instance  of  the  lowest  degradation  of  woman. 

Summing  up  the  most  ancient  and  trustworthy  evidence  re- 
garding Mexico,  Bandelier  writes  (627)  :  "  The  position  of 
women  was  so  inferior,  they  were  regarded  as  so  far  beneath 
the  male,  that  the  most  degrading  epithet  that  could  be  ap- 
plied to  any  Mexican,  aside  from  calling  him  a  dog,  was  that 
of  woman."  If  a  woman  presumed  to  don  a  man's  dress  her 
death  alone  could  wipe  out  the  dishonor. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   GALLANTRY 

So  much  for  the  Indians  of  North  America.  The  tribes 
of  the  southern  half  of  the  continent  would  furnish  quite  as 
long  and  harrowing  a  tale  of  masculine  selfishness  and  brutal- 
ity, but  considerations  of  space  compel  us  to  content  ourselves 
with  a  few  striking  samples. 

In  the  northern  regions  of  South  America  historians  say 
that  "  when  a  tribe  was  preparing  poison  in  time  of  war,  its 
efficacy  was  tried  upon  the  old  women  of  the  tribe/'1  "  When 
we  saw  the  Chaymas  return  in  the  evening  from  their  gardens," 
writes  Humboldt  (I.,  309),  "  the  man  carried  nothing  but  the 
knife  or  hatchet  (machete)  with  which  he  clears  his  way 
among  the  underwood  ;  whilst  the  woman,  bending  under  a 
great  load  of  plantains,  carried  one  child  in  her  arms,  and, 

»  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst.,  1884,  p.  251. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   GALLANTRY  587 

sometimes,  two  other  children  placed  upon  the  load."  Schom- 
burgk  (II.,  428)  found  that  Caribbean  women  generally  bore 
marks  of  the  brutal  treatment  to  which  they  were  subjected 
by  the  men.  Brett  noted  (27,  31)  that  among  the  Guiana 
tribes  women  had  to  do  all  the  work  in  field  and  home  as  well 
as  on  the  march,  while  the  men  made  baskets,  or  lay  indo- 
lently in  hammocks  until  necessity  compelled  them  to  go 
hunting  or  fishing.  The  men  had  succeeded  so  thoroughly 
in  creating  a  sentiment  among  the  women  that  it  was  their 
duty  to  do  all  the  work,  that  when  Brett  once  induced  an 
Indian  to  take  a  heavy  bunch  of  plantains  off  his  wife's  head 
and  carry  it  himself,  the  wife  (slave  to  the  backbone)  seemed 
hurt  at  what  she  deemed  a  degradation  of  her  husband.  One 
of  the  most  advanced  races  of  South  America  were  the  Abi- 
pones  of  Paraguay.  While  addicted  to  infanticide  they,  con- 
trary to  the  rule,  were  more  apt  to  spare  the  female  children  ; 
but  their  reason  for  this  was  purely  commercial.  A  son,  they 
said,  would  be  obliged  to  purchase  a  wife,  whereas  daughters 
may  be  sold  to  a  bridegroom  (Dobrizhoffer,  II.,  97).  The  same 
missionary  relates  (214)  that  boys  are  laughed  at,  praised  and 
rewarded  for  throwing  bones,  horns,  etc. ,  at  their  mothers. 
"  If  their  wives  displease  them,  it  is  sufficient ;  they  are  or- 
dered to  decamp.  .  .  .  Should  the  husband  cast  his  eyes 
upon  any  handsome  woman  the  old  wife  must  move  merely 
on  this  account,  her  fading  form  and  advancing  age  being  her 
only  accusers,  though  she  may  be  universally  commended  for 
conjugal  fidelity,  regularity  of  conduct,  diligent  obedience, 
and  the  children  she  has  borne/' 

In  Chili,  among  the  Mapuches  (Araucanians)  the  females, 
says  Smith  (214),  "  do  all  the  labor,  from  ploughing  and  cook- 
ing to  the  saddling  and  unsaddling  of  a  horse  ;  for  the  f  lord 
and  master'  does  nothing  but  eat,  sleep,  and  ride  about." 
Of  the  Peruvian  Indians  the  Jesuit  Pater  W.  Bayer  (cited 
Reich,  444)  wrote  about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
that  wives  are  treated  as  slaves  and  are  so  accustomed  to  be- 
ing regularly  whipped  that  when  the  husband  leaves  them 
alone  they  fear  he  is  paying  attention  to  another  woman  and 
beg  him  to  resume  his  beating.  In  Brazil,  we  are  informed 


588  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

by  Spix  and  Martins  (I.,  381),  "the  women  in  general  are 
slaves  of  the  men,  being  compelled  when  on  the  march  to 
carry  everything  needed,  like  beasts  of  burden  ;  nay,  they  are 
even  obliged  to  bring  home  from  the  forest  the  game  killed 
by  the  men."  Tschudi  (R.  d.  S.  A.,  284,  274)  saw  the  marks 
of  violence  on  many  of  the  Botocudo  women,  and  he  says  the 
men  reserved  for  themselves  the  beautiful  plumes  of  birds, 
leaving  to  the  women  such  ornaments  as  pig's  claws,  berries, 
and  monkey's  teeth.  A  peculiar  refinement  of  selfishness  is 
alluded  to  by  Burton  (//.  B.,  II.,  49) :  "  The  Brazilian  natives, 
to  warm  their  naked  bodies,  even  in  the  wigwam,  and  to  de- 
fend themselves  against  wild  beasts,  used  to  make  their 
women  keep  wood  burning  all  night."  Of  the  Patagonians 
Falkner  says  (125)  that  the  women  "  are  obliged  to  submit  to 
every  species  of  drudgery."  He  gives  a  long  list  of  their 
duties  (including  even  hunting)  and  adds  :  "  No  excuse  of 
sickness,  or  being  big  with  child,  will  relieve  them  from  their 
appointed  labor;  and  so  rigidly  are  they  obliged  to  perform 
their  duty,  that  their  husbands  cannot  help  them  on  any 
occasion,  or  in  the  greatest  distress,  without  incurring  the 
highest  ignominy."  Even  the  wives  of  the  chiefs  were  obliged 
to  drudge  unless  they  had  slaves.  At  their  marriages  there 
is  little  ceremony,  the  bride  being  simply  handed  over  to  the 
man  as  his  property.  The  Fuegians,  according  to  Fitzroy, 
when  reduced  to  a  state  of  famine,  became  cannibals,  eat- 
ing their  old  women  first,  before  they  kill  their  dogs.  A  boy 
being  asked  why  they  did  this,  answered  :  "  Doggie  catch 
otters,  old  women  no."  (Darwin,  V.  B.,  214.) 

Thus,  from  the  extreme  north  to  the  extreme  south  of  the 
American  continent  we  find  the  "  noble  red  man  "  consistent 
in  at  least  one  thing — his  maltreatment  of  women.  How,  in 
the  face  of  these  facts,  which  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely, 
a  specialist  like  Horatio  Hale  could  write  that  there  was 
among  the  Indians  "  complete  equality  of  the  sexes  in  social 
estimation  and  influence,"  and  that  "  casual  observers  have 
been  misled  by  the  absence  of  those  artificial  expressions  of 
courtesy  which  have  descended  to  us  from  the  time  of  chiv- 
alry, and  which,  however  gracious  and  pleasing  to  witness, 


HOW    INDIANS   ADORE   SQUAWS  589 

are,  after  all,  merely  signs  of  condescension  and  protection 
from  the  strong  to  the  weak"1 — surpasses  all  understanding. 
It  is  a  shameful  perversion  of  the  truth,  as  all  the  intelligent 
and  unbiassed  evidence  of  observers  from  the  earliest  time 
proves. 

HOW   INDIANS   ADORE   SQUAWS 

Not  content  with  maltreating  their  squaws,  the  Indians 
literally  add  insult  to  injury  by  the  low  estimation  in  which 
they  hold  them.  A  few  sample  illustrations  must  suffice  to 
show  how  far  that  adoration  which  a  modern  lover  feels  for 
women  and  for  his  sweetheart  in  ^particular  is  beyond  their 
mental  horizon. 

"  The  Indians,"  says  Hunter  (350),  "  regarding  themselves 
as  the  lords  of  the  earth,  look  down  upon  the  squaws  as  an 
inferior  order  of  beings,"  created  to  rear  families  and  do  all 
the  drudgery  ;  "  and  the  squaws,  accustomed  to  such  usage, 
cheerfully  acquiesce  in  it  as  a  duty."  The  squaw  is  not  es- 
teemed for  her  own  sake,  but  "  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  children  she  raises,  particularly  if  they  are  males,  and 
prove  brave  warriors."  Franklin  says  (287)  that  the  Cop- 
per Indians  "hold  women  in  the  same  low  estimation  as  the 
Ohippewayans  do,  looking  upon  them  as  a  kind  of  property 
which  the  stronger  may  take  from  the  weaker."  He  also 
speaks  (157)  "of  the  office  of  nurse,  so  degrading  in  the  eyes 
of  a  Chippewayan,  as  partaking  of  the  duties  of  a  woman." 
"  The  manner  of  the  Indian  boy  toward  his  mother,"  writes 
Willoughby  (274),  "is  almost  uniformly  disrespectful;" 
while  the  adults  consider  it  a  disgrace  to  do  a  woman's  work 
—that  is,  practically  any  work  at  all ;  for  hunting  is  not  re- 
garded as  work,  but  is  indulged  in  for  the  sport  and  excite- 
ment. In  the  preface  to  Mrs.  Eastman's  book  on  the  Da- 
kotas  we  read  :  "The  peculiar  sorrows  of  the  Sioux  woman 
commence  at  her  birth.  Even  as  a  child  she  is  despised,  in 
comparison  with  her  brother  beside  her,  who  is  one  day  to 
be  a  great  warrior."  "Almost  everything  that  a  man  owns 
is  sacred,"  says  Neill  (86),  "  but  nothing  that  the  woman 

^rinton's  Library  of  Aborig.  Amer.  Lit.,  II.,  65. 


590  HOW   AMERICAN  INDIANS   LOVE 

possesses  is  so  esteemed."  The  most  insulting  epithets  that 
can  be  bestowed  on  a  Sioux  are  coward,  dog,  woman. 
Among  the  Creeks,  "  old  woman  "  is  the  greatest  term  of  re- 
proach which  can  be  used  to  those  not  distinguished  by  war 
names.  You  may  call  an  Indian  a  liar  without  arousing  his 
anger,  but  to  call  him  a  woman  is  to  bring  on  a  quarrel  at 
once.  (Schoolcraft,  V.,  280.)  If  the  Natchez  have  a  prisoner 
who  winces  under  torture  he  is  turned  over  to  the  women  as 
being  unworthy  to  die  by  the  hands  of  men.  (Charlevoix, 
207. )  In  many  cases  boys  are  deliberately  taught  to  despise 
their  mothers  as  their  inferiors.  Blackfeet  men  mourn  for 
the  loss  of  a  man  by  scarifying  their  legs ;  but  if  the  de- 
ceased is  only  a  woman,  this  is  never  done.  (Grinnell,  194.) 
Among  all  the  tribes  the  men  look  on  manual  work  as  a  de- 
gradation, fit  only  for  women.  The  Abipones  think  it  be- 
neath a  man  to  take  any  part  in  female  quarrels,  and  this  too 
is  a  general  trait.  (Dobrizh offer,  II.,  155.) 1  Mrs.  Eastman 
relates  (XVII.)  that  "among  the  Dakotas  the  men  think  it 
undignified  for  them  to  steal,  so  they  send  their  wives  thus 
unlawfully  to  procure  what  they  want — and  woe  be  to  them 
if  they  are  found  out."  Horse-stealing  alone  is  considered 
worthy  of  superior  man.  But  the  most  eloquent  testimony 
to  the  Indian's  utter  contempt  for  woman  is  contributed  in 
an  unguarded  moment  by  his  most  ardent  champion.  Catlin 
relates  (N.  A.  /.,  I.,  226)  how  he  at  one  time  undertook  to 
paint  the  portraits  of  the  chiefs  and  such  of  the  warriors  as 
the  chiefs  deemed  worthy  of  such  an  honor.  All  was  well 
until,  after  doing  the  men,  he  proposed  also  to  paint  the 
pictures  of  some  of  the  squaws  : 

"  I  at  once  got  myself  into  a  serious  perplexity,  being 
heartily  laughed  at  by  the  whole  tribe,  both  by  men  and  by 
women,  for  my  exceeding  and  (to  them)  unaccountable  con- 

1  The  only  way  the  women  could  secure  any  consideration  was  by  overawing 
the  men.  Thus  Southey  says  (III.,  411)  regarding  the  Abipones  that  the  old 
women  u  were  obdurate  in  retaining  superstitions  that  rendered  them  objects  of 
fear,  and  therefore  of  respect."  Smith  in  his  book  on  the  Araucanians  of  Chili, 
notes  (238),  that  besides  the  usual  medicine  men  there  was  an  occasional  woman 
"who  had  acquired  the  most  unbounded  influence  by^  shrewdness,  joined  to  a 
hideous  personal  appearance  and  a  certain  mystery  with  which  she  was  invest- 
ed." 


CHOOSING   A    HUSBAND  591 

desoension  in  seriously  proposing  to  paint  a  woman,  con- 
ferring on  her  the  same  honor  that  I  had  done  the  chiefs  and 
braves.  Those  whom  I  had  honored  were  laughed  at  by  the 
hundreds  of  the  jealous,  who  had  been  decided  unworthy  the 
distinction,  and  were  now  amusing  themselves  with  the  very 
enviable  honor  which  the  great  white  medicine  man  had  con- 
ferred especially  on  them,  and  was  now  to  confer  equally 
upon  the  squaws  I " 


CHOOSING   A   HUSBAND 

It  might  be  inferred  a  priori  that  savages  who  despise  and 
abuse  their  women  as  the  Indians  do  would  not  allow  girls 
to  choose  their  own  husbands  except  in  cases  where  no  selfish 
reason  existed  to  force  them  to  marry  the  choice  of  their  par- 
ents. This  inference  is  borne  out  by  the  facts.  Westermarck, 
indeed,  remarks  (215)  that  "among  the  Indians  of  North 
America,  numberless  instances  are  given  of  woman's  liberty 
to  choose  her  husband."  But  of  the  dozen  or  so  cases  he 
cites,  several  rest  on  unreliable  evidence,  some  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  question  at  issue, 1  and  others  prove  exactly 
the  contrary  of  what  he  asserts  ;  while,  more  suo,  he  placidly 
ignores  the  mass  of  facts  which  disprove  his  assertion  that 
"  women  are  not,  as  a  rule,  married  without  having  any  voice 
of  their  own  in  the  matter."  There  are,  no  doubt,  some 
tribes  who  allow  their  women  more  or  less  freedom.  Apache 
courtship  appears  to  be  carried  on  in  two  ways,  in  each  of 
which  the  girl  has  the  power  to  refuse.  In  both  cases  the 
proposal  is  made  by  pantomime,  without  a  word  being  spoken. 
According  to  Cremony  (245),  the  lover  stakes  his  horse  in 
front  of  the  girl's  "roost."  Should  she  favor  his  suit,  she 
takes  his  horse,  gives  it  food  and  water,  and  secures  it  in  front 
of  his  lodge.  Four  days  comprise  the  term  allowed  for  an 
answer.  Dr.  J.  AV.  Hoffman  relates2  that  a  Coyotero  Apache, 
having  selected  the  girl  he  wants,  watches  to  find  out  the 
trail  she  is  apt  to  frequent  when  she  goes  to  pick  berries  or 

'As  when  he  says,  "The  Atkha  Aleuts  occasionally  betrothed  their  chiU 
dren  to  each  other,  but  the  marriage  was  held  to  be  binding  only  after  the 
birth  of  a  child."  What  evidence  of  choice  is  there  here? 

a  U.  S.  Geogr.  and  Geol.  Survey  of  Colorado,  etc.,  1870,  p.  465. 


592  HOW   AMERICAN    INDIANS   LOVE 

grass  seed.     Having  discovered  it,  he  places  a  row  of  stones 
on  both  sides  of  it  for  a  distance  of  ten  or  fifteen  paces  : 

"  He  then  allows  himself  to  be  seen  by  the  maiden  before 
she  leaves  camp,  and  running  ahead,  hides  himself  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  row  of  stones.  If  she  avoids  them 
by  passing  to  the  outside,  it  is  a  refusal,  but  should  she  con- 
tinue on  her  trail,  and  pass  between  the  two  rows,  he  imme- 
diately rushes  out,  catches  her  and  .  .  .  carries  her  tri- 
umphantly to  camp." 

Lewis  and  Clarke  relate  (441)  that  among  the  Chinooks  the 
women  "have  a  rank  and  influence  very  rarely  found  among 
Indians."  They  are  allowed  to  speak  freely  before  the  men, 
their  advice  is  asked,  and  the  men  do  not  make  drudges  of 
them.  The  reason  for  this  may  be  found  in  a  sentence  from 
Ross's  book  on  Oregon  (90)  :  "Slaves  do  all  the  laborious 
work."  Among  such  Indians  one  might  expect  that  girls 
would  have  their  inclinations  consulted  when  it  came  to  choos- 
ing a  husband.  In  the  twelfth  chapter  of  his  Wa-Kee-Nah* 
James  C.  Strong  gives  a  graphic  description  of  a  bridal  chase 
which  he  once  witnessed  among  the  Mountain  Chinooks.  A 
chief  had  an  attractive  daughter  who  was  desired  by  four 
braves.  The  parents,  having  no  special  choice  in  the  matter, 
decided  that  there  should  be  a  race  on  horseback,  the  girl  be- 
ing the  winner's  prize.  But  if  the  parents  had  no  preference, 
the  girl  had  ;  she  indulged  in  various  ingenious  manoeuvres  to 
make  it  possible  for  the  Indian  on  the  bay  horse  to  overtake 
her  first.  He  succeeded,  put  his  arm  round  her  waist,  lifted 
her  from  her  horse  to  his  own,  and  married  her  the  next  day. 

Here  the  girl  had  her  way,  and  yet  it  was  only  by  accident, 
for  while  she  had  a  preference,  she  had  no  liberty  of  choice. 
It"  was  the  parents  who  ordered  the  bridal  race,  and,  had  an- 
other won  it,  she  would  have  been  his.  It  is  indeed  difficult 
to  find  real  instances  of  liberty  of  choice  where  the  daughter's 
desire  conflicted  with  the  wishes  of  the  parents  or  other  rela- 
tives. Westermarck  claims  that  the  Creeks  endeavored  to 
gain  the  girl's  consent,  but  no  such  fact  can  be  gathered  from 
the  passage  he  refers  to  (Schoolcraft,  V.,  269).  Moreover, 
among  the  Creeks,  unrestrained  license  prevailed  before  mar- 


COMPULSORY   -FREE    CHOICE"  593 

riage,  and  marriage  was  considered  only  as  a  temporary  conven- 
ience, not  binding  on  the  party  more  than  a  year  ;  and  finally, 
Creeks  who  wanted  to  marry  had  to  gain  the  consent  of  the 
young  woman's  uncles,  aunts,  and  brothers.  Westerrnarck 
also  says  that  among  the  Thlinkets  the  suitor  had  to  consult 
the  wishes  of  the  "  young  lady  ; "  yet  on  page  511  he  tells  us 
that  among  these  Indians,  "  when  a  husband  dies,  his  sister's 
sou  must  marry  the  widow."  It  does  not  seem  likely  that 
where  even  widows  are  treated  so  unceremoniously,  any  def- 
erence is  paid  to  the  wishes  of  the  "young  ladies."  From  Keat- 
ing Westermarck  gathers  the  information  that  although  with 
the  Chippewas  the  mothers  generally  settle  the  preliminaries  to 
marriage  without  consulting  the  children,  the  parties  are  not 
considered  husband  and  wife  till  they  have  given  their  con- 
sent. A  reference  to  the  original  passage  gives,  however,  a 
different  impression,  showing  that  the  parents  always  have 
their  own  way,  unless  the  girl  elopes.  The  suitor's  mother 
arranges  the  matter  with  the  parents  of  the  girl  he  wants, 
and  when  the  terms  have  been  agreed  upon  her  property  is 
removed  to  his  lodge.  "The  disappearance  of  the  property 
is  the  first  intimation  which  she  receives  of  the  contemplated 
change  in  her  condition."  If  one  or  both  are  unwilling, 
"  the  parents,  who  have  a  great  influence,  generally  succeed 
in  bringing  them  to  second  their  views." 


A  story  related  by  C.  G.  Murr,  a  German  missionary,  warns 
us  that  assertions  as  to  the  girls  being  consulted  must  always 
be  accepted  with  great  caution.  His  remarks  relate  to  several 
countries  of  Spanish  America.  He  was  often  urged  to  find 
husbands  for  girls  only  thirteen  years  old,  by  their  mothers, 
who  were  tired  of  watching  them.  "  Much  against  my  will," 
he  writes,  "  I  married  such  young  girls  to  Indians  fifty  or 
sixty  years  old.  At  first  I  was  deceived,  because  the  girls 
said  it  was  their  free  choice,  whereas,  in  truth,  they  had  been 
persuaded  by  their  parents  with  flatteries  or  threats.  Af- 
terwards I  always  asked  the  girls,  and  they  confessed  that 


594  HOW  AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

their  father  and  mother  had  threatened  to  beat  them  if  they 
disobeyed." 

In  tribes  where  some  freedom  seems  to  be  allowed  the 
girls  at  present  there  are  stories  or  traditions  indicating  that 
such  a  departure  from  the  natural  state  of  affairs  is  resented 
by  the  men.  Sometimes,,  writes  Dorsey  (260)  of  the  Omahas, 
"  when  a  youth  sees  a  girl  whom  he  loves,  if  she  be  willing,  he 
says  to  her,  e  I  will  stand  in  that  place.  Please  go  thither  at 
night.'  Then  after  her  arrival  he  enjoys  her,  and  subse- 
quently asks  her  of  her  father  in  marriage.  But  it  was  dif- 
ferent with  a  girl  who  had  been  petulant,  one  who  had  refused 
to  listen  to  the  suitor  at  first.  He  might  be  inclined  to  take 
his  revenge.  After  lying  with  her,  he  might  say,  'As  you 
struck  me  and  hurt  me,  I  will  not  marry  you.  Though  you 
think  much  of  yourself,  I  despise  you/  Then  would  she  be 
sent  away  without  winning  him  for  her  husband  ;  and  it  was 
customary  for  the  man  to  make  songs  about  her.  In  these 
songs  the  woman's  name  was  not  mentioned  unless  she  had 
been  a  '  minckeda,'  or  dissolute  woman/'  1 


A   BRITISH   COLUMBIA   STORY 

An  odd  story  about  a  man  who  was  so  ugly  that  no  girl 
would  have  him  is  related  by  Boas.2  This  man  was  so  dis- 
tasteful to  the  girls  that  if  he  accidentally  touched  the  blanket 
of  one  of  them  she  cut  out  the  piece  he  had  touched.  Ten 
times  this  had  happened,  and  each  time  he  had  gathered  the 
piece  that  had  been  cut  out,  giving  it  to  his  mother  to  save. 
Besides  being  so  ugly,  he  was  also  very  poor,  having  gam- 
bled away  everything  he  possessed,  and  being  reduced  to  the 
necessity  of  swallowing  pebbles  to  allay  the  pangs  of  hunger. 
A  sorce'rer,  however,  put  a  fine  new  head  on  him  and  told 

1  Miss  Alice  Fletcher  gives  in  the  Journal  of  the  American  Folk  Lore  Society 
(1889,  219-26)  an  amusing  instance  of  how  far  a  present-day  Omaha  girl  may 
go  in  resenting  a  man's  unwelcome  advances.  A  faint-hearted  lover  had  sent  a 
friend  as  go-between  to  ask  for  the  girl's  favor.  As  he  finished  his  speech  the 
girl  looked  at  him  with  flashing  eyes  and  said  :  "I'll  have  nothing  to  do  with 
your  friend  or  you  either."  The  young  man  hesitated  a  moment  as  if  about  to 
repeat  his  request,  when  a  dangerous  wave  of  her  water-bucket  made  him  leap 
to  one  side  to  escape  a  deluge. 

*  Zeitschrift  fur  FAfinologie,  1891,  p.  545. 


THE  DANGER  OF  COQUETRY       595 

him  where  he  would  find  two  lovely  girls  who  had  refused 
every  suitor,  but  who  would  accept  him.  He  did  so  and  the 
girls  were  so  pleased  with  his  beauty  that  they  became  his 
wives  at  once  and  went  home  with  him.  He  resumed  his 
gambling  and  lost  again,  but  his  wives  helped  him  to  win 
back  his  losses.  They  also  said  to  him  :  "  All  the  girls  who 
formerly  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  you  will  now  be 
eager  to  be  yours.  Pay  no  attention  to  them,  however,  but 
repel  them  if  they  touch  you."  The  girls  did  come  to  his 
mother,  and  they  said  they  would  like  to  be  his  wives. 
When  the  mother  told  him  this,  he  replied  :  "  I  suppose 
they  want  to  get  back  the  pieces  they  cut  out  of  their  blank- 
ets." He  took  the  pieces,  gave  them  to  the  girls,  with  taunt- 
ing words,  and  drove  them  away. 


THE    DANGER   OF    COQUETRY 

The  moral  of  this  sarcastic  conclusion  obviously  was  in- 
tended to  be  that  girls  must  not  show  independence  and  re- 
fuse a  man,  though  he  be  a  reckless  gambler,  so  poor  that  he 
has  to  eat  pebbles,  and  so  ugly  that  he  needs  to  have  a  new 
head  put  on  him.  Another  story,  the  moral  of  which  was 
"to  teach  girls  the  danger  of  coquetry,"  is  told  by  School- 
craft  (Oneota,  381-84).  There  was  a  girl  who  refused  all  her 
suitors  scornfully.  In  one  case  she  went  so  far  as  to  put  to- 
gether her  thumb  and  three  fingers,  and,  raising  her  hand 
gracefully  toward  the  young  man,  deliberately  open  them  in 
his  face.  This  gesticulatory  mode  of  rejection  is  an  ex- 
pression of  the  highest  contempt,  and  it  galled  the  young 
warrior  so  much  that  he  was  taken  ill  and  took  to  his  bed 
until  he  thought  out  a  plan  of  revenge  which  cured  him.  He 
carried  it  out  with  the  aid  of  a  powerful  spirit,  or  per- 
sonal Manito.  They  made  a  man  of  rags  and  dirt,  cemented 
it  with  snow  and  brought  it  to  life.  The  girl  fell  in  love 
with  this  man  and  followed  him  to  the  marshes,  where  the 
snow-cement  melted  away,  leaving  nothing  but  a  pile  of  rags 
and  dirt.  The  girl,  unable  to  find  her  way  back,  perished  in 
the  wilderness. 


596  HOW   AMERICAN    INDIANS   LOVE 


THE    GIRL   MARKET 

In  the  vast  majority  of  instances  the  Indians  did  not  sim- 
ply try  to  curb"  woman's  efforts  to  secure  freedom  of  choice  by 
intimidating  her  or  inventing  warning  stories,  but  held  the 
reins  so  tightly  that  a  woman's  having  a  will  of  her  own  was 
out  of  the  question.  It  may  be  said  that  there  are  three 
principal  stages  in  the  evolution  of  the  custom  of  choosing  a 
wife.  In  the  first  and  lowest  stage  a  man  casts  his  eyes  on  a 
woman  and  tries  to  get  her,  utterly  regardless  of  her  own 
wishes.  In  the  second,  an  attempt  is  made  to  win  at  least  her 
good-will,  while  in  the  third — which  civilized  nations  are  just 
entering — a  lover  would  refuse  to  marry  a  girl  at  the  expense 
of  her  happiness.  A  few  Indian  tribes  have  got  as  far  as  the 
second  stage,  but  most  of  them  belong  to  the  first.  Provided 
a  warrior  coveted  a  girl,  and  provided  her  parents  were  satis- 
fied with  the  payment  he  offered,  matters  were  settled  with- 
out regard  to  the  girFs  wishes.  To  avoid  needless  friction  it 
was  sometimes  deemed  wise  to  first  gain  the  girl's  good-will  ; 
but  this  was  a  matter  of  secondary  importance.  "  It  is  true," 
says  Smith  in  his  book  on  the  Indians  of  Chili  (214),  "  that 
the  Araucanian  girl  is  not  regularly  put  up  for  sale  and  bar- 
tered for,  like  the  Oriental  houris ;  but  she  is  none  the  less 
an  article  of  merchandise,  to  be  paid  for  by  him  who  would 
aspire  to  her  hand.  She  has  no  more  freedom  in  the  choice 
of  her  husband  than  has  the  Circassian  slave."  "  Marriage 
with  the  North  Californians,"  says  Bancroft  (I.,  349), 

"  is  essentially  a  matter  of  business.  The  young  brave  must 
not  hope  to  win  his  bride  by  feats  of  arms  or  softer  wooing, 
but  must  buy  her  of  her  father  like  any  other  chattel,  and 
pay  the  price  at  once,  or  resign  in  favor  of  a  richer  man. 
The  inclinations  of  the  girl  are  in  nowise  consulted  ;  no 
matter  where  her  affections  are  placed,  she  goes  to  the  high- 
est bidder.  The  purchase  effected,  the  successful  suitor  leads 
his  blushing  property  to  his  hut  and  she  becomes  his  wife 
without  further  ceremony.  Wherever  this  system  of  wife- 
purchase  obtains  the  rich  old  men  almost  absorb  the  youth 
and  beauty  of  the  tribe,  while  the  younger  and  poorer  men 
must  content  themselves  with  old  and  ugly  wives.  Hence 


THE   GIRL   MARKE 

their  eagerness  for  that  wealth  which  will  enaERTtftBtiT  to 
throw  away  their  old  wives  and  buy  new  ones/7 1 

A  favorable  soil  for  the  growth  of  romantic  and  conjugal 
love  !  The  Omahas  have  a  proverb  that  an  old  man  cannot 
win  a  girl,  he  can  only  win  her  parents  ;  nevertheless  if  the 
old  man  has  the  ponies  he  gets  the  girl.  The  Indians  insist 
on  their  rights,  too.  Powers  tells  (318)  of  a  California 
(Nishinam)  girl  who  loathed  the  man  that  had  a  claim  on 
her.  She  took  refuge  with  a  kind  old  widow,  who  deceived 
the  pursuers.  When  the  deception  was  discovered,  the  noble 
warriors  drew  their  arrows  and  shot  the  widow  to  deatli  in 
the  middle  of  the  village  amid  general  approval.  I  myself 
once  saw  a  poor  Arizona  girl  who  had  taken  refuge  with  a 
white  family.  When  I  saw  the  man  to  whom  she  had  been 
sold — a  dirty  old  tramp  whom  a  decent  person  would  not 
want  in  the  same  tribe,  much  less  in  the  same  wigwam — I 
did  not  wonder  she  hated  him  ;  but  he  had  paid  for  her  and 
she  was  ultimately  obliged  to  live  with  him. 

Of  the  Mandans,  Catlin  says  (I.,  119)  that  wives  "are  most- 
ly treated  for  with  the  father,  as  in  all  instances  they  are  regu- 
larly bought  and  sold."  Belden  relates  (32)  how  he  married 
a  Sioux  girl.  One  evening  his  Indian  friend  Frombe  came  to 
his  lodge  and  said  he  would  take  him  to  see  his  sweetheart. 

"I  followed  him  and  we  went  out  of  the  village  to  where 
some  girls  were  watching  the  Indian  boys  play  at  ball.  Point- 
ing to  a  good-looking  Indian  girl,  Frombe  said  :  '  That  is 
Washtella/ 

"  '  Is  she  a  good  squaw  ? '  I  inquired. 

«  <  Very/  he  replied. 

"  4  But  perhaps  she  will  not  want  to  marry  me/  I  said. 

'•'  '  She  has  no  choice/  he  answered,  laughing. 

"  '  But  her  parents/  I  interposed,  '  will  they  like  this  kind 
of  proceeding  ? ' 

"  '  The  presents  you  are  expected  to  make  them  will  be 
more  acceptable  than  the  girl/  he  answered/' 

1  How  California  marriages  were  made  in  the  good  old  times  we  may  see  from 
the  account  in  Hakluyt's  Collection  of  Early  Voyages,  1810,  III.,  513:  "  If  any 
man  had  a  daughter  to  marry  he  went  where  the  people  kept,  and  said,  I  have  a 
daughter  to  marry,  is  there  any  man  here  that  would  have  her  ?  And  if  there 
were  any  that  would  have  her,  he  answered  that  he  would  have  her,  and  so  the 
marriage  was  made." 


598  HOW  AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

And  when  full  moon  came  the  two  were  married. 

Blackfeet  girls,  according  to  Grinnell  (216),  "had  very 
little  choice  in  the  selection  of  a  husband*  If  a  girl  was  told 
she  had  to  marry  a  certain  man,  she  had  to  obey.  She  might 
cry,  but  her  father's  will  was  law,  and  she  might  be  beaten 
or  even  killed  by  him  if  she  did  not  do  as  she  was  ordered." 
Concerning  the  Missasaguas  of  Ontario,  Chamberlain  writes 
(145),  that  in  former  times,  "  when  a  chief  desired  to  marry, 
he  caused  all  the  marriageable  girls  in  the  village  to  come  to< 
gether  and  dance  before  him.  By  a  mark  which  he  placed  on 
the  clothes  of  the  one  he  had  chosen  her  parents  knew  she 
had  been  the  favored  one."  Of  the  Nascopie  girls,  M'Lean 
says  (127)  that  "  their  sentiments  are  never  consulted," 

The  Pueblos,  who  treat  their  women  exceptionally  well, 
nevertheless  get  their  wives  by  purchase.  With  the  Nava- 
jos  "  courtship  is  simple  and  brief ;  the  wooer  pays  for  his 
bride  and  takes  her  home."  (Bancroft,  I.,  511.)  Among  the 
Columbia  River  Indians,  "  to  give  a  wife  away  without  a  price 
is  in  the  highest  degree  disgraceful  to  her  family."  (Bancroft, 
I.,  276.)  "  The  Pawnees,"  says  Catlin,1  "marry  and  unmarry 
at  pleasure.  Their  daughters  are  held  as  legitimate  merchan- 
dise. .  .  .  The  women,  as  a  rule,  accept  the  situation  with 
the  apathy  of  the  race."  Of  the  Cheyennes,  Arapahoes,  and 
other  Plains  Indians,  Dodge  says  (216)  that  girls  are  regarded 
as  valuable  property  to  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder,  in  later 
times  by  preference  to  a  white  man,  though  it  is  known  that 
he  will  probably  soon  abandon  his  wife.  In  Oregon  and 
Washington  "  wives,  particularly  the  later  ones,  are  often 
sold  or  traded  off.  ...  A  man  sends  his  wife  away,  or 
sells  her,  at  his  will."  (Gibbs,  199.) 


OTHER   WAYS   OF  THWARTING   FREE   CHOICE 

Besides  this  commercialism,  which  was  so  prevalent  that,  as 
Dr.  Brinton  says  (A.  R.,  48),  "in  America  marriage  was 
usually  by  purchase,"  there  were  various  other  obstacles  to 
free  choice.  "  In  a  number  of  tribes,"  as  the  same  cham- 

» Smithsonian  Rep.,  1885,  Pt.  II.,  p.  71. 


WAYS   OF   THWARTING   FREE    CHOICE        599 

pion  of  the  Indian  remarks,  "  the  purchase  of  the  eldest 
daughter  gave  a  man  a  right  to  buy  all  the  younger 
daughters  as  they  reached  nuhile  age."  Concerning  the 
Blackfeet — who  were  among  the  most  advanced  Indians — 
Grinnell  says  (217)  that  "  all  the  younger  sisters  of  a  man's 
wife  were  regarded  as  his  potential  wives.  If  he  was  not  dis- 
posed to  marry  them,  they  could  not  be  disposed  of  to  any 
other  man  without  his  consent."  "When  a  man  dies  his 
wives  become  the  potential  wives  of  his  brother."  "In  the 
old  days,  it  was  a  very  poor  man  who  did  not  have  three  wives. 
Many  had  six,  eight,  and  some  more  than  a  dozen."  Morgan 
refers  (A.  S. ,  432)  to  forty  tribes  where  sisters  were  disposed 
of  in  bunches ;  and  in  all  such  cases  liberty  of  choice  is  of 
course  out  of  the  question.  Indeed  the  wide  prevalence  of  so 
utterly  barbarous  and  selfish  a  custom  shows  us  vividly  how 
far  from  the  Indian's  mind  in  general  was  the  thought  of 
seriously  consulting  the  choice  of  girls. 

Furthermore,  to  continue  Dr.  Brinton's  enumeration, 
"the  selection  of  a  wife  was  often  regarded  as  a  concern  of 
the  gens  rather  than  of  the  individual.  Among  the  Hurons, 
for  instance,  the  old  women  of  the  gens  selected  the  wives  for 
the  young  men,  and  united  them  with  painful  uniformity  to 
women  several  years  their  senior."  "  Thus,"  write^  Morgan 
(L.  of  I.,  320),  "it  often  happened  that  the  young  warrior  at 
twenty-five  was  married  to  a  woman  of  forty,  and  oftentimes 
a  widow  ;  while  the  widower  at  sixty  was  joined  to  a  maiden 
of  twenty." 

Besides  these  obstacles  to  free  choice  there  are  several  others 
not  referred  to  by  Dr.  Brinton,  the  most  important  being  the 
custom  of  wrestling  for  a  wife,  and  of  infant  betrothal  or  very 
early  marriage.  According  to  a  passage  in  Hearne  (104)  cited 
on  a  previous  occasion,  and  corroborated  by  W.  H.  Hooper 
mid  J.  Richardson,  it  has  always  been  the  custom  of  northern 
Indians  to  wrestle  for  the  women  they  want,  the  strongest  one 
carrying  off  the  prize,  and  a  weak  man  being  "  seldom  per- 
mitted to  keep  a  wife  that  a  stronger  man  thinks  worth  his  no- 
tice." It  is  needless  to  say  that  this  custom,  which  "  prevails 
throughout  all  their  tribes,"  puts  the  woman's  freedom  of 


600  HOW    AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

choice  out  of  question  as  completely  as  if  she  were  a  slave 
sold  in  the  market.  Richardson  says  (II.,  24)  that  "  the  be- 
reaved husband  meets  his  loss  with  the  resignation  which  cus- 
tom prescribes  in  such  a  case,  and  seeks  his  revenge  by  taking 
the  wife  of  another  man  weaker  than  himself."  Duels  or 
fights  for  women  also  occurred  in  California,  Mexico,  Para- 
guay, Brazil  and  other  countries.1 

Among  the  Comanches  "  the  parents  exercise  full  control 
in  giving  their  daughters  in  marriage,"  and  they  are  fre- 
quently married  before  the  age  of  puberty.  (Schoolcraft,  II., 
132.)  Concerning  the  customs  of  early  betrothal  and  mar- 
riage enough  has  been  said  in  preceding  pages.  It  prevailed 
widely  among  the  Indians  and,  of  course,  utterly  frustrated 
all  possibility  of  choice.  In  fact,  apart  from  this  custom, 
Indian  marriage,  being  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  with  girls 
under  fifteen,2  made  choice,  in  any  rational  sense  of  the 
word,  entirely  out  of  the  question. 

CENTRAL   AND   SOUTH   AMERICAN   EXAMPLES 

It  has  long  been  fashionable  among  historians  to  attribute 
to  certain  Indians  of  Central  and  South  America  a  very  high 
degree  of  culture.  This  tendency  has  received  a  check  in 
these  critical  days.3  We  have  seen  that  morally  the  Mexi- 
cans, Central  Americans,  and  Peruvians  were  hardly  above 
other  Indians.  In  the  matter  of  allowing  females  to  choose 
their  mates  we  likewise  find  them  on  the  same  low  level.  In 
Guatemala  even  the  men  were  obliged  to  accept  wives  selected 
for  them  by  their  parents,  and  Nicaraguan  parents  usually  ar- 
ranged the  matches.  In  Peru  the  Incas  fixed  the  conditions 
under  which  matrimony  might  take  place  as  follows  :  "  The 
bridegroom  and  bride  must  be  of  the  same  town  or  tribe,  and 
of  the  same  class  or  position  ;  the  former  must  be  somewhat 

1  Schoolcraft,  IV.,  234  ;  Powers,  221 ;  Waitz,  IV.,  132;  Azara  (  Voyages),  II., 
94;  von  Martins,  1,412,  509. 

2  A  table  relating  to  sixty-five  North  American  Indian  girls  given  in  Ploss,  I. , 
476,  shows  that  all  but  eight  of  them  had  their  first  child  before  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  year  ;  the  largest  number  (eighteen),  having  it  in  the  fourteenth. 

'See  John  Piske's  Discovery  of  America,  I.,  21,  and  E.  J.  Payne's  History  oj 
the  New  World. 


CENTRAL  AND   SOUTH  AMERICAN  EXAMPLES     601 

less  than  twenty-four  years  of  age,  the  latter  eighteen.  The 
consent  of  the  parents  and  chiefs  of  the  tribes  was  indispen- 
sible."  (Tschudi,  184.)  Unless  the  consent  of  the  parents 
had  been  obtained  the  marriage  was  considered  invalid  and 
the  children  illegitimate.  (Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  I.,  207.)  As 
regards  the  Mexicans,  Bandelier  shows  (612,  620)  that  the  posi- 
tion of  woman  was  "  little  better  than  that  of  a  costly  animal/' 
and  he  cites  evidence  indicating  that  as  late  as  1555  it  was 
ordained  at  a  concile  that  since  it  is  customary  among  the 
Indians  "not  to  marry  without  permission  of  their  princi- 
pals .  .  .  and  the  marriage  among  free  persons  is  not  as 
free  as  it  should  be/'  etc. 

As  for  the  other  Indians  of  the  Southern  Continent  it  is 
needless  to  add  that  they  too  are  habitually  guided  by  the 
thought  that  daughters  exist  for  the  purpose  of  enriching 
their  parents.  To  the  instances  previously  cited  I  may  add 
what  Schomburgk  says  in  his  book  on  Guiana — that  if  the 
girl  to  whom  the  parents  betroth  their  son  is  too  young  to 
marry,  they  give  him  meanwhile  a  widow  or  an  older  unmar- 
ried woman  to  live  with.  This  woman,  after  his  marriage, 
becomes  his  servant.  Musters  declares  (186)  that  among  the 
Tehuelches  (Patagonians)  "marriages  are  always  those  of 
inclination."  But  Falkner's  story  is  quite  different  (124)  : 
"  As  many  of  these  marriages  are  compulsive  on  the  side  of 
the  woman,  they  are  frequently  frustrated.  The  contumacy 
of  the  woman  sometimes  tires  out  the  patience  of  the  man, 
who  then  turns  her  away,  or  sells  her  to  the  person  on  whom 
she  has  fixed  her  affections/'  Westermarck  fancies  he  has  a 
case  on  his  side  in  Tierra  del  Fuego,  where,  "  according  to 
Lieutenant  Bove,  flie  eagerness  with  which  young  women  seek 
for  husbands  is  surprising,  but  even  more  surprising  is  the  fact 
that  they  nearly  always  attain  their  ends."  More  careful 
study  of  the  pages  of  the  writer  referred  to  1  and  a  moment's 
unbiassed  reflection  would  have  made  it  clear  to  Westermarck 
that  there  is  no  question  here  either  of  choice  or  of  marriage 
in  our  sense  of  the  words.  The  "  husbands  "  the  girls  hunted 

'  Giacomo  Bove,  Patagonia.     Cf.  Ploss,  L,  476  ;   Globus,  1883,158.     Hyades's 
Mission  Scientifique  du  Cap  Horn,  VII.,  377. 


602  HOW    AMERICAN    INDIANS    LOVE 

for  were  boys  of  fourteen  to  sixteen,  and  the  girls  themselves 
began  at  twelve  to  thirteen  years  of  age,  or  five  years  before 
they  became  mothers,  and  Fuegian  marriage  "  is  not  regarded 
as  complete  until  the  woman  has  become  a  mother,"  as  Wes- 
termarck  knew  (22,  138).  In  reality  the  conduct  of  these 
girls  was  nothing  but  wantonness,  in  which  the  men,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  acquiesced.  The  missionaries  were  greatly 
scandalized  at  the  state  of  affairs,  but  their  efforts  to  improve 
it  were  strongly  resented  by  the  natives.1 

WHY   INDIANS   ELOPE 

With  the  Abipones  of  Paraguay  "  it  frequently  happens," 
according  to  Dobrizhoffer  (207),  "  that  the  girl  rescinds  what 
has  been  settled  and  agreed  upon  betiveen  the  parents  and  the 
bridegroom,  obstinately  rejecting  the  very  mention  of  mar- 
riage. Many  girls,  through  fear  of  being  compelled  to  marry, 
have  concealed  themselves  in  the  recesses  of  the  woods  or 
lakes  ;  seeming  to  dread  the  assaults  of  tigers  less  than  the  un- 
tried nuptials."  The  italics  are  mine  ;  they  make  it  obvious 
that  the  choice  of  the  girls  is  not  taken  into  account  and  that 
they  can  escape  parental  tyranny  only  by  running  away. 
Among  the  Indians  in  general  it  often  happens  that  merely 
to  escape  a  hated  suitor  a  girl  elopes  with  another  man. 
Such  cases  are  usually  referred  to  as  love-matches,  but  all 
they  indicate  is  a  (comparative)  preference,  while  proving  that 
there  was  no  liberty  of  choice.  A  girl  whose  parents  try  to 
force  her  on  a  much-married  warrior  four  or  five  times  her 
age  must  be  only  too  glad  to  run  away  with  any  young  man 
who  comes  along,  love  or  no  love.2 

In  the  chapter  on  Australia  I  commented  on  Westermarck's 
topsy-turvy  disposition  to  look  .upon  elopements  as  indica- 
tions of  the  liberty  of  choice,  He  repeats  the  same  error  in 

1  EqiTally  inconclusive  is  Westermarck's  reference  (216)  to  what  Azara  says 
regarding  the  Guanas.     Azara  expressly  informs   us  that,  as   summed  up  by 
Darwin  (Z>.    M.,  Chap.  XIX.)  among  the  Guanas  u  the  men  rarely  marry  till 
twenty  years  old  or  more,  as  before  that  age  they  cannot  conquer  their  rivals." 
Where  girls  are  literally  wrestled  for,  they  have,  of  course,  no  choice. 

2  Keating  says  (II.,  153)  that  among  the  Chippewas  ll  where  the  antipathy  is 
great,  one  or  the  other  elopes  from  the  lodge." 


WHY   INDIANS   ELOPE  603 

his  references  to  Indians.  "It  is  indeed,"  he  says,  "  com- 
mon in  America  for  a  girl  to  run  away  from  a  bridegroom 
forced  upon  her  by  the  parents,  whilst,  if  they  refuse  to  give 
their  daughter  to  a  suitor  whom  she  loves,  the  couple  elope. 
Thus,  among  the  Dakotas,  as  we  are  told  by  Mr.  Prescott, 
'  there  are  many  matches  made  by  elopement,  much  to  the  cha- 
grin of  the  parents.' '  The  italics  again  indicate  that  denial 
of  choice  is  the  custom,  while  the  elopement  indicates  the 
same  thing,  for  if  there  were  liberty  of  choice  there  would  be 
no  need  of  eloping.  Moreover,  an  Indian  elopement  does  not 
at  all  indicate  a  romantic  preference  on  the  part  of  an  elop- 
ing couple.  If  we  examine  the  matter  carefully  we  find 
that  an  Indian  elopement  is  usually  a  very  prosaic  affair 
indeed.  A  young  man  likes  a  girl  and  wishes  to  marry  her; 
but  she  has  no  choice,  as  her  father  insists  on  a  number  of 
ponies  or  blankets  in  payment  for  her  which  the  suitor  may 
not  have  ;  therefore  the  two  run  away.  In  other  words,  an 
Indian  elopement  is  a  purely  commercial  transaction,  and 
one  of  a  very  shady  character  too,  being  nothing  less  than  a 
desire  to  avoid  paying  the  usual  price  for  a  girl.  It  is  in  fact 
a  kind  of  theft,  an  injustice  to  the  parents  ;  for  while  paying  for 
a  bride"  may  be  evidence  of  savagery,  it  is  the  custom  among 
Indians,  and  parents  naturally  resent  its  violation,  though 
ultimately  they  may  forgive  the  elopers.  Dodge  relates  (202) 
that  among  the  Indians  of  the  great  plains  parents  pre- 
fer a  rich  suitor,  though  he  may  have  several  wives  already. 
If  the  daughter  prefers  another  man  the  only  thing  to  do  is 
to  elope.  This  is  not  easy,  for  a  careful  watch  is  kept  on 
suspicious  cases.  But  the  girl  may  manage  to  step  out  while 
the  family  is  asleep.  The  lover  has  two  ponies  in  readiness, 
and  off  they  speed.  If  overtaken  by  the  pursuers  the  man  is 
liable  to  be  killed.  If  not,  the  elopers  return  after  a  few 
weeks  and  all  is  forgiven.  Such  elopements,  Dodge  adds,  are 
frequent  in  the  reservations  where  young  men  are  poor  and 
cannot  afford  ponies.  Moreover,  the  concentration  of  large 
numbers  of  Indians  of  different  bands  and  tribes  on  the  res- 
ervations- has  increased  the  opportunities  of  acquaintance  and 
love-making  among  the  young  people. 


604  HOW   AMERICAN    INDIANS   LOVE 

In  an  article  on  Love-Songs  among  the  Omaha  Indians,1 
Miss  Alice  Fletcher  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  indi- 
vidual is  little  considered  in  comparison  with  the  tribal 
organization  :  "  Marriage  was  therefore  an  affair  of  the 
gentes,  and  not  the  free  union  of  a  man  and  woman  as  we 
understand  the  relation."  But  side  by  side  with  the  formal 
marriage  sanctioned  by  the  tribe  grew  up  the  custom  of 
secret  courtship  and  elopement  ;  so  the  saying  among  the 
Omahas  is  :  "  An  old  man  buys  his  wife  ;  a  young  man  steals 
his."  Dorsey  says  (260) :  "  Should  a  man  get  angry  because 
his  single  daughter,  sister,  or  niece  has  eloped,  the  other 
Omahas  would  talk  about  him  saying,  '  That  man  is  angry 
on  account  of  the  elopement  of  his  daughter/  They  would 
ridicule  him  for  his  behavior." 

Other  Indians  take  the  matter  much  more  seriously.  When 
a  Blackfoot  girl  elopes  her  parents  feel  very  bitter  against 
the  man.  "  The  girl  has  been  stolen.  The  union  is  no  mar- 
riage at  all.  The  old  people  are  ashamed  and  disgraced  for 
their  daughter.  Until  the  father  has  been  pacified  by  satis- 
factory payments,  there  is  no  marriage."  (Grinnell,  215.)  The 
Nez  Perces  so  bitterly  resent  elopements  that  they  consider 
the  bride  in  such  a  case  as  a  prostitute  and  her  parents  may 
seize  upon  the  man's  property.  (Bancroft,  I.,  276.) 

Indian  elopements,,  I  repeat,  are  nothing  but  attempts  to 
dodge  payment  for  a  bride,  and  therefore  do  not  afford  the 
least  evidence  of  exalted  sentiments,  i.e.,  of  romantic  love, 
however  romantic  they  may  be  as  incidents.  Read,  for  in- 
stance, what  Mrs.  Eastman  writes  (103)  regarding  the  Sioux  : 

"  When  a  young  man  is  unable  to  purchase  the  girl  he  loves 
best,  or  if  her  parents  are  unwilling  she  should  marry  him, 
if  he  have  gained  the  heart  of  the  maiden  he  is  safe.  They 
appoint  a  time  and  place  to  meet ;  take  whatever  will  be 
necessary  for  their  journey.  .  .  .  Sometimes  they  merely 
go  to  the  next  village  to  return  the  next  day.  But  if  they 
fancy  a  bridal  tour,  away  they  go  several  hundred  miles, 
with  the  grass  for  their  pillow,  the  canopy  of  heaven  for  their 
curtains,  and  the  bright  stars  to  watch  over  them.  When 

1  Memoirs  of  the  International  Congress  of  Anthropologists,  1894,  153-57. 


SUICIDE    AND    LOVE  605 

they  return  home  the  bride  goes  at  once  to  chopping  wood, 
and  the  groom  to  smoking." 

What  does  such  a  romantic  incident  tell  us  regarding  the 
nature  of  the  elopers'  feelings — whether  they  are  refined  and 
sentimental  or  purely  sensual  and  frivolous  ?  Nothing  what- 
ever. But  the  last  sentence  of  Mrs.  Eastman's  description — 
photographed  from  life — indicates  the  absence  of  at  least  four 
of  the  most  elementary  and  important  ingredients  of  romantic 
love.  If  he  adored  his  bride,  if  he  sympathized  with  her 
feelings,  if  he  felt  the  faintest  impulse  toward  gallantry  or 
sacrifice  of  his  selfish  comforts,  he  would  not  allow  her  to 
chop  wood  while  he  loafed  and  smoked.  Moreover,  if  he  had 
an  appreciation  of  personal  beauty  he  would  not  permit  his 
wife  to  sacrifice  hers  before  she  is  out  of  her  teens  by  making 
her  do  all  the  hard  work.  But  why  should  he  care.  ?  Since 
all  his  marriage  customs  are  on  a  commercial  basis,  why 
should  he  not  discard  a  wife  of  thirty  and  take  two  new  ones 
of  fifteen  each  ? 

SUICIDE   AND   LOVE 

Having  thus  disposed  of  elopements,  let  us  examine  an- 
other phenomenon  which  has  always  been  a  mainstay  of  those 
who  would  fain  make  out  that  in  matters  of  love  there  is  no 
difference  between  us  and  savages.  Waitz  (III.,  102)  accepts 
stories  of  suicide  as  evidence  of  genuine  romantic  love,  and 
Wester rnarck  follows  his  example  (358,  530),  while  Catlin 
(II.,  143)  mentions  a  rock  called  Lover's  Leap,  "from  the 
summit  of  which,  it  is  said,  a  beautiful  Indian  girl,  the 
daughter  of  a  chief,  threw  herself  off,  in  presence  of  her  tribe, 
some  fifty  years  ago,  and  dashed  herself  to  pieces,  to  avoid 
being  married  to  a  man  whom  her  father  had  decided  to  be 
her  husband,  and  whom  she  would  not  marry."  Keating  has 
a  story  which  he  tells  with  all  the  operatic  embellishments 
indulged  in  by  his  guide  (I.,  280).  Reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms,  the  tale,  as  he  gives  it,  is  as  follows  : 

In  a  village  of  the  tribe  of  Wapasha  there  lived  a  girl 
named  Winona.  She  became  attached  to  a  young  hunter 


606  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

who  wished  to  marry  her,  but  her  parents  refused  their  con- 
sent, having  intended  her  for  a  prominent  warrior.  Winona 
would  not  listen  to  the  warrior's  addresses  and  told  her  parents 
she  preferred  the  hunter,  who  would  always  be  with  her,  to 
the  warrior,  who  would  be  constantly  away  on  martial  ex- 
ploits. The  parents  paid  no  attention  to  her  remonstrances 
and  fixed  the  day  for  her  wedding  to  the  man  of  their  choice. 
While  all  were  busy  with  the  preparations,  she  climbed  the 
rock  overhanging  the  river.  Having  reached  the  s.ummit,  she 
made  a  speech  full  of  reproaches  to  her  family,  and  then  sang 
her  dirge.  The  wind  wafted  her  words  and  song  to  her 
family,  who  had  rushed  to  the  foot  of  the  rock.  They  im- 
plored her  to  come  down,  promising  at  last  that  she  should 
not  be  forced  to  marry.  Some  tried  to  climb  the  rock,  but 
before  they  could  reach  her  she  threw  herself  down  the  preci- 
pice and  fell  a  corpse  at  the  feet  of  her  friends. 

Mrs.  Eastman  also  relates  the  story  of  Winona's  leap  (65- 
70).  "The  incident  is  well  known/'  she  writes.  "  Almost 
everyone  has  read  it  a  dozen  times,  and  always  differently 
told."  It  is  needless  to  say  that  a  story  told  in  a  dozen  differ- 
ent ways  and  embellished  by  half-breed  guides  and  white  col- 
lectors of  legends  has  no  value  as  scientific  evidence.1  But 
even  if  we  grant  that  the  incidents  happened  just  as  related, 
there  is  nothing  to  indicate  the  presence  of  exalted  sentiments. 
The  girl  preferred  the  hunter  because  he  would  be  more  fre- 
quently with  her  than  the  warrior  (one  of  the  versions  says 
she  wanted  to  wed  "  the  successful  hunter")2 — which  leaves 
us  in  doubt  as  to  the  utilitarian  or  sentimental  quality  of  her 
attachment.  Apparently  she  was  not  very  eager  to  marry  the 
hunter,  for  had  she  been,  why  did  she  refuse  to  live  when 
they  told  her  she  would  not  be  forced  to  marry  the  warrior  ? 
But  the  most  important  consideration  is  that  she  did  not 
commit  suicide  for  love  at  all,  but  from  aversion — to  escape 
being  married  to  a  man  she  disliked.  Aversion  is  usually  the 

1  Laurence  Oliphant  realized  the  absurdity  of  attributing  such  tales  to  Ind- 
ians, assigning  to  them  feelings  and  motives  like  our  own.  He  kindly  supplies 
some  further  details,  insisting  that  the  girl  was  told  to  "return  and  all  would 
be  forgiven;"  that  the  "fast  young  Sioux  hunter"  whom  Winona  wanted  to 
marry  (  "her  heart  could  never  be  another's"),  had  u  no  means  of  his  own."  He 
is  believed  to  have  been  "utterly  disconsolate  at  the  time,"  and  "subsequently 
to  have  married  an  heiress."  See  the  amusing  satire  in  his  Minnesota,  287-89. 

aS.  R.  Riggs  in  U.S.  Geogr.  and  Geol.  Soc.,  IX.,  206. 


SUICIDE   AND   LOVE  607 

motive  which  leads  Indian  women  to  what  are  called  "  sui- 
cides for  love."     As  Griggs  remarks  (I.  c.)  : 

"  Sometimes  it  happens  that  a  young  man  wants  a  girl,  and 
her  friends  are  also  quite  willing,  while  she  alone  is  unwilling. 
The  purchase-bundle  is  desired  by  her  friends,  and  hence 
compulsion  is  resorted  to.  The  girl  yields  and  goes  to  be 
his  slave,  or  she  holds  out  stoutly,  sometimes  taking  her  own 
life  as  the  alternative.  Several  cases  of  the  kind  have  come 
to  the  personal  knowledge  of  the  writer/' 

Not  long  ago  I  read  in  the  Paris  Figaro  a  learned  article 
on  suicide  in  which  the  assertion  was  made  that,  as  is  well 
known,  savages  never  take  their  own  lives.  W.  W.  Westcott, 
in  his  otherwise  excellent  book  on  suicide,  which  is  based  on 
over  a  hundred  works  relating  to  his  subject,  makes  the 
same  astounding  assertion.  I  have  shown  in  preceding  pages 
that  many  Africans  and  Polynesians  commit  suicide,  and  I 
may  now  add  that  Indians  seem  still  more  addicted  to  this 
idiotic  practice.  Sometimes,  indeed,  they  have  cause  for  it. 
I  have  already  cited  the  words  of  Belden  that  suicide  is  very 
common  among  Indian  women,  and  that  "  considering  the 
treatment  they  receive,  it  is  a  wonder  there  is  not  more  of 
it."  Keating  says  (II.,  172)  th&t  "  among  the  women  suicide 
is  far  more  frequent  [than  among  men],  and  is  the  result  of 
jealousy,  or  of  disappointments  in  love  ;  sometimes  extreme 
grief  at  the  loss  of  a  child  will  lead  to  it."  "Not  a  season 
passes  away,"  writes  Mrs.  Eastman  (169),  "  but  we  hear  of 
some  Dacotah  girl  who  puts  an  end  to  her  life  in  consequence 
of  jealousy,  or  from  the  fear  of  being  forced  to  marry  some 
one  she  dislikes.  A  short  time  ago  a  very  young  girl  hung 
herself  rather  than  become  the  wife  of  a  man  who  was  al- 
ready the  husband  of  one  of  her  sisters." 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  some  of  these  cases  (which  might 
be  multiplied  indefinitely)  there  is  a  strong  provocation  to 
self-murder.  But  as  a  rule  suicide  among  Indians,  as  among 
other  savages  and  barbarians,  and  among  civilized  races,  is 
not  proof  of  strong  feeling,  but  of  a  weak  intellect.  The 
Chippewas  themselves  hold  it  to  be  a  foolish  thing  (Keating, 
II.,  168)  ;  and  among  the  Indians  in  general  it  was  usually 


608  HOW   AMERICAN    INDIANS   LOVE 

resorted  to  for  the  most  trivial  causes.  "  The  very  frequent 
suicides  committed  [by  Creeks]  in  consequence  of  the  most 
trifling  disappointment  or  quarrel  between  men  and  women 
are  not  the  result  of  grief,  but  of  savage  and  unbounded  re- 
venge." (Schoolcraft,  V.,  272.)  Krauss  (222)  found  that  sui- 
cide was  frequent  among  the  Alaskan  Thlinket  Indians.  Men 
sometimes  resorted  to  it  when  they  saw  no  other  way  of  secur- 
ing revenge,  for  a  person  who  causes  a  suicide  is  fined  and  pun- 
ished as  if  he  were  a  murderer.  One  woman  cut  her  throat 
because  a  shahman  accused  her  of  having  by  sorcery  caused 
another  one's  illness.  A  favorite  mode  of  committing  suicide 
is  to  go  out  into  the  sea,  cast  away  oar  and  rudder,. and  de- 
liver themselves  to  wind  and  waves.  Sometimes  they  change 
their  mind.  A  man,  whose  face  had  been  all  scratched  up  by 
his  angry  wife,  left  home  to  end  his  life  ;  but  after  spending 
the  night  with  a  trader  he  concluded  to  go  home  and  make 
up  the  quarrel.  Mrs.  Eastman  (48)  tells  of  an  old  squaw 
who  wanted  to  hang  herself  because  she  was  angry  with  her 
son  ;  but  when,  "  after  having  doubled  the  strap  four  times 
to  prevent  its  breaking,  she  found  herself  choking,  her  cour- 
age gave  way — she  yelled  frightfully."  They  cut  her  down 
and  in  an  hour  or  two  she  was  quite  well  again.  Another 
squaw,  aged  ninety,  attempted  to  hang  herself  because  the 
men  would  not  allow  her  to  go  with  a  war-party.  Her  ob- 
ject in  wanting  to  go  was  to  have  the  pleasure  of  mutilating 
the  corpses  of  enemies  !  Keating  says  that  Sank  men  some- 
times kill  themselves  because  they  are  envious  of  the  power 
of  others.  Neill  (85)  records  the  cases  of  a  Dakota  wife  who 
hanged  herself  because  her  husband  had  flogged  her  for  hid- 
ing his  whiskey  ;  of  a  woman  who  hanged  herself  because 
her  son-in-law  refused  to  give  her  whiskey  ;  of  an  old  woman 
who  flew  into  a  passion  and  committed  suicide  because  her 
pet  granddaughter  had  been  whipped  by  her  father. 

If  a  storm  in  a  tea-kettle  is  accepted  as  a  true  storm,  then 
we  may  infer  from  these  suicides  the  existence  of  deep  feel- 
ing and  profound  despair.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  savage's 
feelings  are  no  deeper  than  a  tea-kettle,  and  for  that  very 
reason  they  boil  up  and  overflow  more  readily  than  if  they 


SUICIDE    AND    LOVE  609 

were  deeper.  Loskiel  tells  us  (74-75),  that  Delaware  Indians, 
both  men  and  women,  have  committed  suicide  on  discover- 
ing that  their  spouse  was  unfaithful ;  these  are  the  same 
Indians  among  whom  husbands  used  to  abandon  their  wives 
when  they  had  babes,  and  wives  their  husbands  when  there 
were  no  more  presents  to  receive.  Yet  even  if  we  ad- 
mitted such  feelings  to  have  been  deep,  suicide  would  not 
prove  the  existence  of  genuine  affection.  Heckewelder  re- 
ports instances  of  Indians  who  took  their  own  lives  because 
the  girls  they  loved  and  were  engaged  to  jilted  them  and 
married  other  men.  Was  the  love  which  led  to  these  suicides 
mere  sensual  passion  or  was  it  refined  sentiment,  devoted  af- 
fection ?  There  is  nothing  to  tell  us,  and  the  inference  from 
everything  we  know  about  Indians  is  that  it  was  purely 
sensual.  Gibbs,  who  understood  Indian  nature  thoroughly, 
took  this  view  when  he  wrote  (198)  that  among  the"  Indians 
of  Oregon  and  Washington  "a  strong  sensual  attachment " 
not  rarely  leads  young  women  to  destroy  themselves  on  the 
death  of  a  lover.  And  the  writer  who  refers  in  Schoolcraft 
(V.,  272)  to  the  frequent  suicides  among  the  Creeks  declares 
that  genuine  love  is  unknown  to  any  of  them.  Had  the 
young  men  referred  to  by  Heckewelder  lost  their  lives  in  try- 
ing to  save  the  lives  of  the  girls  in  question,  it  might  be  per- 
missible to  infer  the  existence  of  affection  ,  but  no  Indian 
has  ever  been  known  to ,  commit  such  an  act.  If  a  savage 
commits  suicide  he  does  it  like  everything  else,  for  selfish 
reasons — as  an  antidote  to  distress — and  selfishness  is  the  very 
negation  of  love.  The  distinguished  psychologist,  Dr.  Mauds- 
ley,  has  well  said  that 

"any  poor  creature  from  the  gutter  can  put  an  end  to  him- 
self ;  there  is  no  nobility  in  the  act  and  no  great  amount  of 
courage  required  for  it.  It  is  a  deed  rather  of  cowardice 
shirking  duty,  generated  in  a  monstrous  feeling  of  self,  and 
accomplished  in  the  most  sinful,  because  wicked,  ignorance." 

In  itself,  no  doubt,  a  suicide  is  apt  to  be  extremely  "ro- 
mantic." A  complete  dime-novel  is  condensed  in  a  few  re- 
marks which  Squier  makes1  anent  a  quaint  Nicaraguan  cus 

•  Trans.   Amer.   Ethnol.   Soc^  Vol.  Ill ,  Pt.  I. 


610  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

torn.  Poor  girls,  he  says,  would  often  get  their  marriage 
portion  by  having  amours  with  several  3^011  ng  men.  Having 
collected  enough  for  a  "dowry,"  the  girl  would  assemble  all 
her  lovers  and  ask  them  to  build  a  house  for  her  and  the  one 
she  intended  to  choose  for  a  husband.  She  then  selected  the 
one  she  liked  best,  and  the  others  had  their  pains  and  their 
past  for  their  love.  Sometimes  it  happened  that  one  of  the 
discarded  lovers  committed  suicide  from  grief.  In  that  case 
the  special  honor  was  in  store  for  him  of  being  eaten  up  by 
his  former  rivals  and  colleagues.  The  bride  also,  I  presume, 
partook  of  the  feast — at  least  after  the  men  had  had  all  they 
wanted. 

LOVE-CHARMS 

Indians  indulge  not  only  in  elopements  and  suicide,  but  in 
the  use  of  love-charms — powders,  potions,  and  incantations. 
Inasmuch  as  the  distinguished  anthropologist  Waitz  mentions 
(III.,  102)  the  use  of  such  charms  among  the  things  which 
show  that  "  genuine  romantic  love  is  not  rare  among  Indians," 
it  behooves  us  to  investigate  the  matter. 

The  ancient  Peruvians  had,  according  to  Tschudi,1  a  special 
class  of  medicine  men  whose  business  it  was 

"  to  bring  lovers  together.  For  this  purpose  they  prepared 
talismans  made  from  roots  or  feathers,  which  were  introduced, 
secretly  if  possible,  into  the  clothes  or  bed  of  those  whose  in- 
clination was  to  be  won.  Sometimes  hairs  of  the  persons 
whose  love  was  to  be  won  were  used,  or  else  highly  colored 
birds  from  the  forest,  or  their  feathers  only.  They  also  sold 
to  the  lovers  a  so-called  Kuyanarumi  (a  stone  to  cause  love)  of 
which  they  said  it  could  be  found  only  in  places  that  had 
been  struck  by  lightning.  They  were  mostly  black  agates 
with  white  veins  and  were  called  Sonko  apatsinakux  (mutual 
heart-carriers).  These  Runatsinkix  (human-being-uniters) 
also  prepared  infallible  and  irresistible  love-potions." 

Among  North  American  Indians  the  Ojibways  or  Chippa- 
was  appear  to  have  been  especially  addicted  to  the  use  of  love- 
powders.  Keating  writes  (II.,  163)  : 

•  Denkschriften  der  KaiserL  Akad.  d.  Wissensch.  in  Wien,  Bd.  XXXIX., 
S.  214. 


LOVE-CHARMS  611 

"  There  are  but  few  young  men  or  women  among  the  Chip- 
pewas  who  have  not  compositions  of  this  kind,  to  promote  love 
in  those  in  whom  they  feel  an  interest.  These  are  generally 
powders  of  different  colors  ;  sometimes  they  insert  them  into 
punctures  made  in  the  heart  of  the  little  images  which  they 
procure  for  this  purpose.  They  address  the  images  by  the 
names  of  those  whom  they  suppose  them  to  represent,  bid- 
ding them  to  requite  their  affection.  Married  women  are  like- 
wise provided  with  powders,  which  they  rub  over  the  heart 
of  their  husbands  while  asleep,  in  order  to  secure  themselves 
against  any  infidelity/' 

Hoffman  says 1  of  these  same  powders  that  they  are  held  in 
great  honor,  and  that  their  composition  is  a  deep  secret  which 
is  revealed  to  others  only  in  return  for  high  compensation. 
Nootka  maidens  sometimes  sprinkle  love-powders  into  the 
food  intended  for  their  lovers,  and  await  their  coming.  The 
Menomini2  have  a  charm  called  takosdwos,  "  the  powder  that 
causes  people  to  love  one  another."  It  is  composed  of  ver- 
milion and  mica  laminae,  ground  very  fine  and  put  into  a 
thimble  which  is  carried  suspended  from  the  neck  or  from 
some  part  of  the  wearing  apparel.  It  is  also  necessary  to 
secure  from  the  one  whose  inclination  is  to  be  won  a  hair,  a 
nail-paring,  or  a  small  scrap  of  clothing,  which  must  also  be 
put  into  the  thimble. 

The  Rev.  Peter  Jones  says  (155)  that  the  Ojibway  Indians 
have  a  charm  made  of  red  ochre  and  other  ingredients,  with 
which  they  paint  their  faces,  believing  it  to  possess  a  power 
so  irresistible  as  to  cause  the  object  of  their  desire  to  love 
them.  But  the  moment  this  medicine  is  taken  away,  and  the 
charm  withdrawn,  the  person  who  before  was  almost  frantic 
with  love  hates  with  a 'perfect  hatred.  The  Sioux  also  have 
great  faith  in  spells.  "  A  lover  will  take  gum/'  says  Mrs. 
Eastman,  "and,  after  putting  some  medicine  in  it,  will 
induce  the  girl  of  his  choice  to  chew  it,  or  put  it  in  her 
way  so  that  she  will  take  it  up  of  her  own  accord/' 
Burton  thought  (160)  that  an  Indian  woman  "will  ad- 
minister '  squaw  medicine/  a  love  philter,  to  her  husband, 

*  Report  of  Bureau  of  EthnoL,   Wash.,  1892. 
8 Ibid.,  18%,  Pt.  L,  p.  154. 


612  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

but  rather  for  the  purpose  of  retaining  his  protection  than 
his  love." 

Quite  romantic  are  all  these  things,  no  doubt ;  but  I  fail  to 
see  that  they  throw  any  light  whatever  on  the  problem 
whether  Indians  can  love  sentimentally.  Waitz  refers  par- 
ticularly to  the  Chippewa  custom  of  putting  powders  into 
the  images  of  coveted  persons  as  a  symptom  of  "  romantic 
love/'  forgetting  that  a  superstitious  fool  may  resort  to  such 
a  procedure  to  evoke  any  kind  of  love,  sensual  or  sentimental, 
and  that  unless  there  are  other  and  more  specific  symptoms 
there  is  nothing  to  indicate  the  quality  of  the  lover's  feelings 
or  the  ethical  character  of  his  desires. 


CURIOSITIES   OF   COURTSHIP 

Some  of  the  Indian  courtship  customs  are  quite  romantic  ; 
perhaps  we  may  find  evidence  of  romantic  love  in  this  direc- 
tion. Those  of  the  Apaches  have  been  already  referred  to. 
Pawnee  courtship  is  thus  described  by  Grinnell.1 

"  The  young  man  took  his  stand  at  some  convenient  point 
where  he  was  likely  to  see  the  young  woman  arid  waited  for 
her  appearance.  Favorite  places  for  waiting  were  near  the 
trail  which  led  down  to  the  river  or  to  the  spot  usually  re- 
sorted to  for  gathering  wood.  The  lover,  wrapped  in  his 
robe  or  blanket,  which  covered  his  whole  person  except  his 
eyes,  waited  here  for  the  girl,  and  as  she  made  her  appearance 
stepped  up  to  her  and  threw  his  blanket  about  her,  holding 
her  in  his  arms.  If  she  was  favorably  inclined  to  him  she 
made  no  resistance,  and  they  might  stand  there  concealed  by 
the  blanket,  which  entirely  covered  them,  talking  to  one 
another  for  hours.  If  she  did  not  favor  him  she  would  at 
once  free  herself  from  his  embrace  and  go  away." 

This  blanket-courtship,  as  it  might  be  called,  also  prevailed 
among  the  Indians  of  the  great  plains  described  by  Colonel 
Dodge  (193-223).  The  lover,  wrapped  in  a  blanket,  ap- 
proaches the  girl's  lodge  and  sits  before  it.  Though  in  plain 
view  of  everybody,  it  is  etiquette  not  to  see  a  lover  under  such 
circumstances.  After  more  or  less  delay  the  girl  may  give 

1  American  Anthropologist,  IV.,  276. 


CURIOSITIES   OF   COURTSHIP  613 

signs  and  come  out,  but  not  until  she  has  taken  certain  pre- 
cautions against  the  Indian's  "Romantic  "  love  which  have 
been  already  referred  to.  He  seizes  her  and  carries  her  off  a 
little  distance.  At  first  they  sit  under  two  blankets,  but  later 
on  one  suffices.  Thus  they  remain  as  long  as  they  please,  and 
no  one  disturbs  them.  If  there  is  more  than  one  suitor  the 
girl  cries  out  if  seized  by  the  wrong  one,  who  at  once  lets  go. 
In  these  cases  it  may  seem  as  if  the  girl  had  her  own  choice. 
But  it  does  not  at  all  follow  that  because  she  favors  a  certain 
suitor  she  will  be  allowed  to  marry  him.  If  her  father  pre- 
fers another  she  will  have  to  take  him,  unless  her  lover  is 
ready  to  risk  an  elopement. 

The  Piutes  of  the  Pacific  slope,  like  some  eastern  Indians, 
appear  to  have  indulged  in  a  form  of  nocturnal  courtship 
strikingly  resembling  that  of  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo.  The 
Indian  woman  (Sarah  W.  Hopkins)  who  wrote  Life  Among 
the  Piutes  declares  that  the  lover  never  speaks  to  his  chosen 
one, 

"  but  endeavors  to  attract  her  attention  by  showing  his 
horsemanship,  etc.  As  he  knows  that  she  sleeps  next  to  her 
grandmother  in  the  lodge,  he  enters  in  full  dress  after  the 
family  has  retired  for  the  night,  and  seats  himself  at  her  feet. 
If  she  is  not  awake,  her  grandmother  wakes  her.  He  does 
not  even  speak  to  the  young  woman  or  grandmother,  but 
when  the  young  woman  wishes  him  to  go  away,  she  rises  and 
goes  and  lies  down  by  the  side  of  her  mother.  He  then 
leaves  as  silently  as  he  came  in.  This  goes  on  sometimes  for 
a  year  or  longer  if  the  young  woman  has  not  made  up  her 
mind.  She  is  never  forced  by  her  parents  to  marry  against 
her  wishes." 

Courtship  among  the  Nishinam  Indians  of  California  is 
thus  described  by  Powers  (317)  : 

"  The  Nishinam  may  be  said  to  set  up  and  dissolve  the  con- 
jugal estate  almost  as  easily  as  do  the  brute  beasts.  No  stipu- 
lated payment  is  made  for  the  wife.  A  man  seeking  to 
become  a  son-in-law  is  bound  to  cater  (ye-lin)  or  make  pres- 
ents to  the  family,  which  is  to  say,  he  will  come  along  some 
day  with  a  deer  on  his  shoulder,  perhaps  fling  it  off  on  the 
ground  before  the  wigwam,  and  go  his  way  without  a  single 


614  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

word  being  spoken.  Some  days  later  he  may  bring  along  a 
brace  of  hare  or  a  ham  of  grizzly-bear  meat,,  or  some  fish,  or 
a  string  of  lid-wok  [shell  money].  He  continues  to  make 
these  presents  for  awhile,  and  if  he  is  not  acceptable  to  the 
girl  and  her  parents  they  return  him  an  equivalent  for  each 
present  (to  return  his  gift  would  be  grossly  insulting) ;  but  if 
fie  finds  favor  in  her  eyes  they  are  quietly  appropriated,  and 
in  due  course  of  time  he  comes  and  leads  her  away,  or  comes 
to  live  at  her  house/' 

Belden  remarks  (301)  that  a  Sioux  seldom  gets  the  girl  he 
wants  to  marry  to  love  him.  He  simply  buys  her  of  her  par- 
ents, and  as  for  the  girl,  after  being  informed  that  she  has 
been  sold  "  she  immediately  packs  up  her  little  keepsakes  and 
trinkets,  and  without  exhibiting  any  emotion,  such  as  is  com- 
mon to  white  girls,  leaves  her  home,  and  goes  to  the  lodge  of 
her  master,"  where  she  is  henceforth  his  wife  and  "  willing 
slave. "  Among  the  Blackfoot  Indians,  too,  there  was  appar- 
ently no  form  of  courtship,  and  young  men  seldom  spoke  to 
girls  unless  they  were  relatives.  (Grinnell,  216.)  It  was  a 
common  thing  among  these  Indians  for  a  youth  and  a  girl 
not  to  know  about  each  other  until  they  were  informed  of 
their  impending  marriage. 

The  Araucanian  maidens  of  Chili  are  disposed  of  with  even 
less  ceremony.  In  the  choice  of  husbands,  as  we  have  seen, 
they  have  no  more  freedom  than  a  Circassian  slave.  Our  in- 
formant (E.  R.  Smith,  214)  adds,  however,  that  attachments 
do  sometimes  spring  up,  and,  though  the  lovers  have  little 
opportunity  to  communicate  freely,  they  resort  occasionally 
to  amatory  songs,  tender  glances,  and  other  tricks  which 
lovers  understand.  "Matrimony  may  follow,  but  such  a 
preliminary  courtship  is  by  no  means  considered  necessary." 
When  a  man  wants  a  girl  he  calls  on  her  father  with  his 
friends.  While  the  friends  talk  with  the  parent,  he  seizes 
the  bride  "by  the  hair  or  by  the  heel,  as  may  be  most  con- 
venient, and  drags  her  along  the  ground  to  the  open  door. 
Once  fairly  outside,  he  springs  to  the  saddle,  still  firmly 
grasping  his  screaming  captive,  whom  he  pulls  up  over  the 
horse's  back,  and  yelling  forth  a  whoop  of  triumph,  he  starts 
off  at  full  gallop.  .  .  .  Gaining  the  woods,  the  lover 


CURIOSITIES   OF   COURTSHIP  615 

dashes  into  the  tangled  thickets,  while  the  friends  consider- 
ately pause  upon  the  outskirts  until  the  screams  of  the  bride 
have  died  away."  A  day  or  two  later  the  couple  .emerge 
from  the  forest  and  without  further  ceremony  live  as  man 
and  wife.  This  is  the  usual  way  ;  but  sometimes 

"  a  man  meets  a  girl  in  the  fields  alone,  and  far  away  from 
home ;  a  sudden  desire  to  better  his  solitary  condition  seizes 
him,  and  without  further  ado  he  rides  up,  lays  violent  hands 
upon  the  damsel  and  carries  her  off.  Again,  at  their  feasts 
and  merrymakings  (in  which  the  women  are  kept  somewhat 
aloof  from  the  men),  a  young  man  may  be  smitten  with  a 
sudden  passion,  or  be  emboldened  by  wine  to  express  a  long 
slumbering  preference  for  a  dusky  maid  ;  his  sighs  and  amor- 
ous glances  will  perhaps  be  returned,  and  rushing  among  the 
unsuspecting  females,  he  will  bear  away  the  object  of  his 
choice  while  yet  she  is  in  the  melting  mood.  When  such  an 
attempt  is  foreseen  the  unmarried  girls  form  a  ring  around 
their  companion,  and  endeavor  to  shield  her  ;  but  the  lover 
and  his  friends,  by  well-directed  attacks,  at  length  succeed  in 
breaking  through  the  magic  circle,  and  drag  away  the  damsel 
in  triumph  ,  perhaps,  in  the  excitement  of  the  game,  some 
of  her  defenders  too  may  share  her  fate." 

A  Patagonian  courtship  is  amusingly  described  by  Bourne 
(91).  The  chief  of  the  tribe  that  held  him  a  captive  several 
months  would  not  allow  anyone  to  marry  without  his  con- 
sent. In  his  opinion  (i  no  Indian  who  was  not  an  accom- 
plished rogue — particularly  in  the  horse-stealing  line — an  ex- 
pert hunter,  able  to  provide  plenty  of  meat  and  grease,  was 
fit  to  have  a  wife  on  any  conditions."  One  day  a  suitor 
appeared  for  the  hand  of  the  chief's  own  daughter,  a  qnasi- 
widow,  but  the  chief  repulsed  him  because  he  had  no  horses. 
As  a  last  resort  the  suitor  appealed  to  the  young  woman  her- 
self, promising,  if  she  favored  him,  that  he  would  give  her 
plenty  of  grease.  This  grease  argument  she  was  unable  to 
resist,  so  she  entreated  her  father  to  give  his  consent.  At  this 
he  broke  out  in  a  towering  passion,  threw  cradle  and  other 
chattels  out  of  the  door  and  ordered  her  to  follow  at  once. 
The  girl's  mother  now  interceded,  whereupon  "  seizing  her 
by  the  hair,  he  hurled  her  violently  to  the  ground  and  beat 
her  with  his  clenched  fists  till  I  thought  he  would  break 


616  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

every  bone  in  her  body."  The  next  morning,  however,  he 
went  to  the  lodge  of  the  newly  married  couple,  made  up, 
and  they  returned,  bag  and  baggage,  to  his  tent. 

Grease  appears  to  play  a  role  in  the  courtship  of  northern 
Indians  too.  Leland  relates  (40)  that  the  Algonquins  make 
sausages  from  the  entrails  of  bears  by  simply  turning  them 
inside  out,  the  fat  which  clings  to  the  outside  of  the  entrails 
filling  them  when  they  are  thus  turned.  These  sausages, 
dried  and  smoked,  are  considered  a  great  delicacy.  The  girls 
show  their  love  by  casting  a  string  of  them  round  the  neck  of 
the  favored  youth. 


PANTOMIMIC    LOVE-MAKING 

It  is  noticeable  in  the  foregoing  accounts  that  courtship 
and  even  proposal  are  apt  to  be  by  pantomime,  without  any 
spoken  words.  The  young  Piute  who  visits  his  girl  while 
she  is  in  bed  with  her  grandmother  "  does  not  speak  to  her." 
The  Nishinam  hunter  leaves  his  presents  and  they  are  ac- 
cepted "  without  a  word  being  spoken  ; "  and  the  Apaches, 
as  we  saw,  "  pop  the  question  "  with  stones  or  ponies.  Why 
this  silent  courtship  ?  Obviously  because  the  Indian  is  not 
used  to  playing  so  humble  a  role  as  that  of  suitor  to  so  in- 
ferior a  being  as  a  woman.  He  feels  awkward,  and  has  noth- 
ing to  say.  As  Burton  has  remarked  (C.  S.,  144),  " in  savage 
and  semi-barbarous  societies  the  separation  of  the  sexes  is 
the  general  rule,  because,  as  they  have  no  ideas  in  common, 
each  prefers  the  society  of  its  own/'  "  Between  the  sexes/' 
wrote  Morgan  (322) 

"  there  was  but  little  sociality,  as  this  term  is  understood  in 
polished  society.  Such  a  thing  as  formal  visiting  was  en- 
tirely unknown.  When  the  unmarried  of  opposite  sexes 
were  casually  brought  together  there  was  little  or  no  con- 
versation between  them.  No  attempts  by  the  unmarried  to 
please  or  gratify  each  other  by  acts  of  personal  attention 
were  ever  made.  At  the  season  of  councils  and  religious 
festivals  there  was  more  of  actual  intercourse  and  sociality 
than  at  any  other  time  ;  but  this  was  confined  to  the  dance 
and  was  in  itself  limited." 


MUSIC    IN   INDIAN    COURTSHIP  617 


HONEYMOON 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  where  there  is  no  mental  inter- 
course there  can  be  no  choice  and  union  of  souls,  but  only  of 
bodies  ;  that  is,  there  can  be  no  sentimental  love.  The 
honeymoon,  where  there  is  one,1  is  in  this  respect  no  better 
than  the  period  of  courtship.  Parkman  gives  this  realistic 
sketch  from  life  among  the  Ogallalla  Indians  (0.  T.,  ch. 
XI.)  : 

" The  happy  pair  had  just  entered  upon  the  honeymoon. 
They  would  stretch  a  buffalo  robe  upon  poles,  so  as  to  pro- 
tect them  from  the  fierce  rays  of  the  sun,  and,  spreading 
beneath  this  rough  canopy  a  luxuriant  couch  of  furs,  would 
sit  affectionately  side  by  side  for  half  a  day,  though  I  could 
not  discover  that  much  conversation  passed  between  them. 
Probably  they  had  nothing  to  say  ;  for  an  Indian's  supply  of 
topics  is  far  from  being  copious." 


MUSIC   IN   INDIAN   COURTSHIP 

Inasmuch  as  music  is  said  to  begin  where  words  end,  we 
might  expect  it  to  play  a  role  in  the  taciturn  courtship  of 
Indians.  One  of  the  maidens  described  by  Mrs.  Eastman 
(85)  "had  many  lovers,  who  wore  themselves  out  playing  the 
flute,  to  as  little  purpose  as  they  braided  their  hair  and 
painted  their  faces."  Gila  Indians  court  and  pop  the  ques- 
tion with  their  flutes,  according  to  the  description  by  Ban- 
croft (I.,  549)  : 

"  When  a  young  man  sees  a  girl  whom  he  desires  for  a 
wife  he  first  endeavors,  to  gain  the  good-will  of  the  parents  ; 
this  accomplished,  he  proceeds  to  serenade  his  lady-love,  and 
will  often  sit  for  hours,  day  after  day,  near  her  house  playing 
on  his  flute.  Should  the  girl  not  appear,  it  is  a  sign  that  she 
rejects  him  ;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  she  comes  out  to 
meet  him,  he  knows  that  his  suit  is  accepted,  and  he  takes 
her  to  his  house.  No  marriage  ceremony  is  performed." 

1  The  Chippewas  have  bridal  canoes  which  they  fill  with  stores  to  last  a  be- 
trothed pair  for  a  month's  excursion,  this  being  the  only  marriage  ceremony. 
(Kane,  20.) 


618  HOW    AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

In  Chili,  among  the  Araucanians,  every  lover  carries  witli 
him  an  amatory  Jew's-harp,  which  is  played  almost  entirely 
by  inhaling.  According  to  Smith 

"  they  have  ways  of  expressing  various  emotions  by  differ- 
ent modes  of  playing,  all  of  which  the  Araucanian  damsels 
seem  fully  to  appreciate,  although  I  must  confess  that  I 
could  not. 

"  The  lover  usually  seats  himself  at  a  distance  from  the 
object  of  his  passion,  and  gives  vent  to  his  feeling  in  doleful 
sounds,  indicating  the  maiden  of  his  choice  by  slyly  gestur- 
ing, winking,  and  rolling  his  eyes  toward  her.  This  style  of 
courtship  is  certainly  sentimental  and  might  be  recommended 
to  some  more  civilized  lovers  who  always  lose  the  use  of  their 
tongues  at  the  very  time  it  is  most  needed." 

"Sentimental"  in  one  sense  of  the  word,  but  not  in  the 
sense  in  which  it  is  used  in  this  book.  There  is  nothing  in 
winking,  rolling  the  eyes,  and  playing  the  Jew's-harp,  either 
by  inhalation  or  exhalation,  to  indicate  whether  the  youth's 
feelings  toward  the  girl  are  refined,  sympathetic,  and  devoted, 
or  whether  he  merely  longs  for  an  amorous  intrigue.  That 
these  Indian  lovers  may  convey  definite  ideas  to  the  minds  of 
the  girls  is  quite  possible.  Even  birds  have  their  love-calls, 
and  savages  in  all  parts  of  the  world  use  "  leading  motives  " 
a  la  Wagner,  i.e.,  musical  phrases  with  a  definite  meaning.1 

Chippewayan  medicine  men  make  use  of  music-boards 
adorned  with  drawings  which  recall  special  magic  formulae 
to  their  minds.  On  one  of  these  (Schoolcraft,  V.,  648)  there 
is  the  figure  of  a  young  man  in  the  frenzy  of  love.  His  head 
is  adorned  with  feathers,  and  he  has  a  drum  in  hand  which 
he  beats  while  crying  to  his  absent  love  :  "  Hear  my  drum  ! 
Though  you  be  at  the  uttermost  pajts  of  the  earth,  hear 
my  drum  ! " 

"  The  flageolet  is  the  musical  instrument  of  young  men 
and  is  principally  used  in  love-affairs  to  attract  the  attention 
of  the  maiden  and  reveal  the  presence  of  the  lover,"  says  Miss 
Alice  Fletcher,  who  has  written  some  entertaining  and  valu- 

1  Army  bugle  calls,  telling  the  soldiers  what  to  do,  are  "leading  motives." 
See  my  article  on  "The  Utility  of  Music,"  Forum,  May,  1898;  or  Wallas- 
chek's  Primitive  Music. 


INDIAN  LOVE-POEMS  619 

able  treatises  on  Indian  mnsic  and  love-songs.1  Mirrors,  too, 
are  used  to  attract  the  attention  of  girls,  as  appears  from  a 
charming  idyl  sketched  by  Miss  Fletcher,  which  I  will  repro- 
duce here,  somewhat  condensed. 

One  day,  while  dwelling  with  the  Omahas,  Miss  Fletcher 
was  wandering  in  quest  of  spring  flowers  near  a  creek  when 
she  was  arrested  by  a  sudden  flash  of  light  among  the  branches. 
"Some  young  man  is  n ear ,"  she  thought,  "signalling  with 
his  mirror  to  a  friend  or  sweetheart."  She  had  hardly  seen 
a  young  fellow  who  did  not  carry  a  looking-glass  dangling  at 
his  side.  The  flashing  signal  was  soon  followed  by  the  wild 
cadences  of  a  flute.  In  a  few  moments  the  girls  came  in 
sight,  with  merry  faces,  chatting  gayly.  Each  one  carried  a 
bucket.  Down  the  hill,  on  the  other  side  of  the  brook,  ad- 
vanced two  young  men,  their  gay  blankets  hanging  from  one 
shoulder.  The  girls  dipped  their  pails  in  the  stream  and 
turned  to  leave  when  one  of  the  young  men  jumped  across 
the  creek  and  confronted  one  of  the  girls,  her  companion 
walking  away  some  distance.  The  lovers  stood  three  feet 
apart,  she  with  downcast  face,  he  evidently  pleading  his 
cause  to  not  unwilling  ears.  By  and  by  she  drew  from  her 
belt  a  package  containing  a  necklace,  which  she  gave  to  the 
young  man,  who  took  it  shyly  from  her  hands.  A  moment 
later  the  girl  had  joined  her  friend,  and  the  man  recrossed 
the  brook,  where  he  and  his  friend  flung  themselves  on  the 
grass  and  examined  the  necklace.  Then  they  rose  to  go. 
Again  the  flute  was  heard  gradually  dying  away  in  the 
distance. 

INDIAN   LOVE-POEMS 

As  it  is  not  customary  for  an  Indian  to  call  at  the  lodge 
where  a  girl  lives,  about  the  only  chance  an  Omaha  has  to 
woo  is  at  the  creek  where  the  girl  fetches  water,  as  in  the 
above  idyl.  Hence  courting  is  always  done  in  secret,  the 
girls  never  telling  the  elders,  though  they  may  compare  notes 
with  each  other.  "  Generally  an  honorable  courtship  ends  in 
a  more  or  less  speedy  elopement  and  marriage,  but  there  are 
men  and  women  who  prefer  dalliance,  and  it  is  this  class  that 
furnishes  the  heroes  and  heroines  of  the  Wa-oo-wa-an."  These 

1  A  Study  of  Omaha  Indian  Music  (14,  15,  44,  52).  Cambridge,  1893;  Jour- 
nal Amer.'  Folklore,  1889  (^19-26);  Memoirs  Intern.  Conor.  Anthrop.,  1894 
(153-57). 


620  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

Wa-oo-wa-an,  or  woman  songs,  are  a  sort  of  ballad  relating 
the  experiences  of  young  men  and  women.  "  They  are  sung 
by  young  men  when  in  each  other's  company,  and  are  seldom 
overheard  by  women,  almost  never  by  women  of  high  char- 
acter ;"  they  "  belong  to  that  season  in  a  man's  career  when 
'wild  oats '  are  said  to  be  sown."  Some  of  them  are  vulgar, 
others  humorous.  "  They  are  in  no  sense  love-songs  ;  they 
have  nothing  to  do  with  courtship,  and  are  reserved  for  the 
exclusive  audience  of  men."  "  The  true  love-song,  called  by 
the  Omahas  Bethae  wa-an  ...  is  sung  generally  in  the 
early  morning,  when  the  lover  is  keeping  his  tryst  and  watch- 
ing for  the  maiden  to  emerge  from  the  tent  and  go  to  the 
spring.  They  belong  to  the  secret  courtship,  and  are  some- 
times called  Me-the-g'thun  wa-an — courting  songs."  "The 
few  words  in  these  songs  convey  the  one  poetic  sentiment : 
'  With  the  day  I  come  to  you  \*  or  '  Behold  me  as  the  day 
dawns/  Few  unprejudiced  listeners,"  the  writer  adds/'  will 
fail  to  recognize  in  the  Bethae  wa-an,  or  love-songs,  the  emo- 
tion and  the  sentiment  that  prompts  a  man  to  woo  the 
woman  of  his  choice."  Miss  Fletcher  is  easily  satisfied.  For 
my  part  I  cannot  see  in  a  tune,  however  rapturously  sung  or 
fluted,  or  in  the  words  "  with  the  day  I  come  to  you  "  and 
the  like  any  sign  of  real  sentiment  or  the  faintest  symptom 
differentiating  the  two  kinds  of  love.  Moreover,  as  Miss 
Fletcher  herself  remarks :  "  The  Omahas  as  a  tribe  have  ceased 
to  exist.  The  young  men  and  women  are  being  educated  in 
English  speech,  and  imbued  with  English  thought ;  their  di- 
rective emotion  will  hereafter  take  the  lines  of  our  artistic 
forms."  Even  if  traces  of  sexual  sentiment  were  to  be  found 
among  Indians  like  the  Omahas,  who  have  been  subjected  for 
some  generations  to  civilizing  influences,  they  would  allow  no 
inference  as  to  the  love-affairs  of  the  real,  wild  Indian. 

Miss  Fletcher  makes  the  same  error  as  Professor  Fillmore, 
who  assisted  her  in  writing  A  Study  of  Omaha  Indian  Music. 
He  took  the  wild  Indian  tunes  and  harnessed  them  to  modern 
German  harmonies — a  procedure  .as  unscientific  as  it  would 
be  unhistoric  to  make  Cicero  record  his  speeches  in  a  phono- 
graph. Miss  Fletcher  takes  simple  Indian  songs  and  reads 


INDIAN   LOVE-POEMS  621 

into  them  the  feelings  of  a  New  York  or  Boston  woman.  The 
following  is  an  instance.  A  girl  sings  to  a  warrior  (I  give 
only  Miss  Fletcher's  translation,  omitting  the  Indian  words) : 
"  War  ;  when  you  returned;  die;  you  caused  me;  go  when 
you  did  ;  God  ;  I  appealed  ;  standing."  This  literal  version 
our  author  explains  and  translates  freely,  as  follows  : 

"  No.  82  is  the  confession  of  a  woman  to  the  man  she  loves, 
that  he  had  conquered  her  heart  before  he  had  achieved  a 
valorous  reputation.  The  song  opens  upon  the  scene.  The 
warrior  had  returned  victorious  and  passed  through  the  rites 
of  the  Tent  of  War,  so  he  is  entitled  to  wear  his  honors  pub- 
licly ;  the  woman  tells  him  how,  when  he  started  on  the 
war-path,  she  went  up  on  the  hill  and  standing  there  cried  to 
Wa-kan-da  to  grant  him  success.  He  who  had  now  won  that 
success  had  even  then  vanquished  her  heart,  'had  caused  her 
to  die '  to  all  else  but  the  thought  of  him  "  (  ! ) 

Another  instance  of  this  emotional  embroidery  may  be 
found  on  pages  15-17  of  the  same  treatise.  What  makes  this 
procedure  the  more  inexplicable  is  that  both  these  songs  are 
classed  by  Miss  Fletcher  among  the  Wa-oo-wa-an  or  "  woman 
songs,"  concerning  which  she  has  told  us  that  "  they  are  in 
no  sense  love-songs,"  and  that  usually  they  are  not  even  the 
effusions  of  a  woman's  own  feelings,  but  the  compositions  of 
frivolous  and  vain  young  men  put  into  the  mouth  of  wanton 
women.  The  honorable  secret  courtships  were  never  talked 
of  or  sung  about. 

Regarding  the  musical  and  poetic  features  of  Dakota  court- 
ship, S.  R.  Riggs  has  this  to  say  (209) : 

"  A  boy  begins  to  feel  the  drawing  of  the  other  sex  and, 
like  the  ancient  Roman  boys,  he  exercises  his  ingenuity  in 
making  a  (  cotanke/  or  rude  pipe,  from  the  bone  of  a  swan's 
wing,  or  from  some  species  of  wood,  and  with  that  he 
begins  to  call  to  his  lady-love,  on  the  night  air.  Having 
gained  attention  by  his  flute,  he  may  sing  this  : 

Stealthily,  secretly,  see  me, 
Stealthily,  secretly,  see  me, 
Stealthily,  secretly,  see  me, 
Lo  !  thee  I  tenderly  regard ; 
Stealthily,  secretly,  see  me. 


622  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

Or  he  may  commend  his  good  qualities  as  a  hunter  by  sing- 
ing this  song  : 

Cling  fast  to  me,  and  you'll  ever  have  plenty, 
Cling  fast  to  me,  and  you'll  ever  have  plenty, 
Cling  fast  to  me.     .     . 

' '  A  Dacota  girl  soon  learns  to  adorn  her  fingers  with  rings, 
her  ears  with  tin  dangles,  her  neck  with  beads.  Perhaps  an 
admirer  gives  her  a  ring,  singing  : 

Wear  this,  I  say ; 
Wear  this,  I  say ; 
Wear  this,  I  say  ; 
This  little  finger  ring, 
Wear  this,  I  say." 

For  traces  of  real  amorous  sentiment  one  would  naturally 
look  to  the  poems  of  the  semi-civilized  Mexicans  and  Peruvi- 
ans of  the  South  rather  than  to  the  savage  and  barbarous 
Indians  of  the  North.  Dr.  Brinton  (E.  of  A.,  297)  has  found 
the  Mexican  songs  the  most  delicate.  He  quotes  two  Aztec 
love-poems,  the  first  being  from  the  lips  of  an  Indian  girl : 

I  know  not  whether  thou  hast  been  absent : 

I  lie  down  with  thee,  I  rise  up  with  thee, 

In  my  dreams  thou  art  with  me. 

If  my  ear-drop  trembles  in  my  ears, 

I  know  it  is  thou  moving  within  my  heart. 

The  second,  from  the  same  language,  is  thus  rendered  : 

On  a  certain  mountain  side, 

Where  they  pluck  flowers, 

I  saw  a  pretty  maiden, 

Who  plucked  from  me  my  heart, 

Whither  thou  goest, 

There  go  I. 

Dr.  Brinton  also  quotes  the  following  poem  of  the. North- 
ern Kioways  as  "  a  song  of  true  love  in  the  ordinary  sense  : " 

I  sat  and  wept  on  the  hillside, 

I  wept  till  the  darkness  fell ; 
I  wept  for  a  maiden  afar  off, 

A  maiden  who  loves  me  well. 


INDIAN   LOVE-POEMS  623 

The  moons  are  passing,  and  some  moon, 

I  shall  see  my  home  long-lost, 
And  of  all  the  greetings  that  meet  me, 

My  maiden's  will  gladden  me  most. 

"  The  poetry  of  the  Indians  is  the  poetry  of  naked  thought. 
They  have  neither  rhyme  nor  metre  to  adorn  it/'  says  School- 
craft  (Oneota,  14).  The  preceding  poem  has  both ;  what 
guarantee  is  there  that  the  translator  has  not  embellished  the 
substance  of  it  as  he  did  its  form  ?  Yet,  granting  he  did 
not  embroider  the  substance,  we  know  that  weeping  and  long- 
ing for  an  absent  one  are  symptoms  of  sensual  as  well  as  of 
sentimental  love,  and  cannot,  therefore,  be  accepted  as  a  cri- 
terion. As  for  the  Mexican  and  other  poems  cited,  they  give 
evidence  of  a  desire  to  be  near  the  beloved,  and  of  the  all-ab- 
sorbing power  of  passion  (monopoly)  which  likewise  are  char- 
acteristic of  both  kinds  of  love.  Of  the  true  criteria  of  love, 
the  altruistic  sentiments  of  gallantry,  self-sacrifice,  sympathy, 
adoration,  there  is  no  sign  in  any  of  these  poems.  Dr.  Brin- 
ton  admits,  too,  that  such  poems  as  the  above  are  rare  among 
the  North  American  Indians  anywhere.  "  Most  of  their 
chants  in  relation  to  the  other  sex  are  erotic,  not  emotional ; 
and  this  holds  equally  true  of  those  which  in  some  tribes 
on  certain  occasions  are  addressed  by  the  women  to  the 
men/7 

Powers  says  (235)  that  the  Wintun  of  California  have  a 
special  dance  and  celebration  when  a  girl  reaches  the  age 
of  puberty.  The  songs  sung  on  this  occasion  "  sometimes 
are  grossly  licentious."  Evidences  of  this  sort  might  be 
supplied  by  the  page.1 

1  Dr.  Brinton  published  in  1886  an  interesting  pamphlet  entitled  The  Concep- 
tion of  Love  in  Some  American  Languages,  which  was  afterward  reprinted  in 
his  Essays  of  an  Americanist.  It  forms  the  philological  basis  for  his  assertion, 
already  quoted,  that  the  languages  of  the  Algonquins  of  North  America,  the  .N  ah- 
uas  of  Mexico,  the  Mayas  of  Yucatan,  the  Quichas  of  Peru,  and  the  Tupis  and 
Guaranis  of  Brazil  "supply  us  with  evidence  that  the  sentiment  of  love  was 
awake  among  them."  t  have  read  this  learned  paper  half  a  dozen  times,  and 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  proves  exactly  the  contrary. 

I.  In  the  Algonkin,  as  I  gather  from  the  professor's  explanations,  there  is  one 
form  of  the  word  "love  "  from  which  are  derived  the  expressions  "  to  tie,"  "  to 
fasten,"  "and  also  some  of  the  coarsest  words  to  express  the  sexual  relation." 
For  the  feebler  "  sentiment "  of  merely  liking  a  person  there  is  a  word  meaning 
"he  or  it  seems  good  to  me."  Expressions  relating  to  the  highest  form  of  love, 


624  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

An  interesting  collection  of  erotic  songs  sung  by  the  Kla- 
math  Indians  of  Southern  Oregon  has  been  made  by  A.  S. 

"  that  which  embraces  all  men  and  all  beings"  are  derived  from  a  root  indica- 
tive of  "  what  gives  joy."  The  italics  are  mine.  I  can  find  here  no  indication 
of  altruistic  sentiment,  but  quite  the  reverse. 

II.  It  was  among  the  Mexicans  that  Dr.  Brinton  found  the  "delicate"  po- 
ems.    Yet  he  informs  us  that  they  had  "only  one  word     ...     to  express 
every  variety  of  love,  human  and  divine,  carnal  and  chaste,  between  men  and 
between  the  sexes."    This  being  the  case,  how  are  we  ever  to  know  which  kii.d 
of  love  a  Mexican  poem  refers  to  ?     Dr.  Brinton  himself  feels  that  one  must  not 
credit  the  Aztecs    '  with  finer  feelings  than  they  deserve  ;  "  and  with  reference 
to  a  certain  mythic  conception  he  adds,   "  I  gravely  doubt  that  they  felt  the 
shafts  of  the  tender  passion,  with  any  such  susceptibility  as  to  employ  this 
metaphor."     Moreover,  as  he  informs  us,  the  Mexican  root  of  the  word  is  not 
derived  from  the  primary  meaning  of  the  root,  but  from  a  secondary  and  later 
signification.     "This  hints  ominously,"  he  says,  "at  the  probability  that  the 
ancient  tongue  had  for  a  long  time  no  word  at  all  to  express  this,  the  highest  and 
noblest  emotion  of  the  human  heart,  and  that  consequently  this  emotion  itself 
had  not  risen  to  consciousness  in  the  national  mind."     In  its  later  development 
the  capacity  of  the  language  for  emotional  expression   was  greatly  enlarged. 
Was  this  before  the  European  missionaries  appeared  on  the  scene?     Mission- 
aries, it  is  important  to  remember,  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  development 
of  the  language,  as  well  as  the  birth  of  the  nobler  conceptions  and  emotions 
among  the  lower  races.     Many  fatal  blunders  in  comparative  psychology  and 
sociology  can  be  traced  to  the  ignoring  of  this  fact. 

III.  Dr.  Otto  Stoll,  in  his  work  Zitr  Ethnoyraphie  der  Rep.  Guatemala,  de- 
clares that  the  Cakchiquel  Indians  of  that  country  "  are .  strangers  to  the  mere 
conception  of  that  kind  of  love  which  is  expressed  by  the  Latin  verb  amare. " 
Loyoh,  the  Guatemalan  word  for  love,  also  means  "to  buy,"  and  according  to 
Stoll  the  only  other  word  in  the  pure  original  tongue  for  the  passion  of  love  is 
ah,  to  want,  to  desire.     Dr.  Brinton  finds  it  used  also  in  the  sense  of  "  to  like," 
"  to  love  "  [in  what  way  ?].     But  the  best  he  can  do  is  to  "  think  that  l  to  buy  ' 
and  'to  love'  may  be  construed  as  developments  of  the  same  idea  of.  prizing 
highly  :  "  which  tells  us  nothing  regarding  altruism.     All  that  we  know  about 
the  customs  of  Guatemalans  points  to  the  conclusion  that  Dr.  Stoll  was  right 
in  declaring  that  they  had  no  notion  of  true  love. 

IV.  Of  the  Peruvian   expressions    relating  to   love   in   the   comprehensive 
sense  of  the  word,  Dr.  Briiiton  specifies  five.     Of  one  of  them,  rnnnay,  there 
were,   according   to    Dr.   Anchorena,  nearly    six    hundred    combinations.      It 
meant  originally  "merely  a  sense  of  want,  an' appetite,  and  the  accompanying 
desire  to  satisfy  it."     In  songs   composed  in   the  nineteenth  century  ccuyay, 
which   originally  meant  pity,  is  preferred  to  munay  as  the  most  appropriate 
term  for  the  love  between  the  sexes.     The  blind,  unreasoning,  absorbing  passion 
is  expressed  by  huaylluni,  which  is  nearly  always  confined  to  sexual  love,  and 
"  conveys  the  idea  of  the  sentiment  showing  it*elf  in  action  b>  those  sweet  signs 
and  marks  of  devotion  which  are  so  highly  prized  by  the  loving  heart."     The 
verb  llnyllny  (literally  to  be  soft  or  tender,  as  fruit)  means  to  "love  with  ten- 
derness, to  have  as  a  darling,  to  caress  lovingly.     It  has  less  of  sexuality  in  it 
than  the  word  last  mentioned,  and  is  applied  by  girls  to  each  other  and   as  a 
term  of  family  fondness."     There  was  also  a  term,  mnyhuay^  referring  to  words 
of  tenderness  or  acts  of  endearment  which  may  be  merely  simulated  signs  of 
emotion.     I  cannot  find  in  any  of  these  definitions  evidence  of  altruistic  affec- 
tion, unless  it  be  in  the  "  marks  of  devotion,"  which  expression,  however,  I  sus- 
pect, is  Philadelphian  rather  than  Peruvian. 

V.  The  Tupi-Guarani  have  one  word  only  to  express  all  the  varieties  of  love 
known  to  them — aihu.     Dr.  Brinton  thinks  he  "cannot  be  far  wrong"  in  de- 
riving this  from  ai,  self,  or  the  same,  and  hu  to  find  or  be  present  ;  and  from 
this  he  infers  that  "to  love,"  in  Guarani,  means  "to  find  oneself  in  another," 
or  "to  discover  in  another  a  likeness  to  oneself."     I  submit  that  this  is  alto- 
gether too  airy  a  fabric  of  fa.ncif nl  conjecture  to  allow  the  inference  that  the 
sentiment  of  love  was  known  to  these  Brazilian  Indians,  whose  morals  and  cus- 


INDIAN  LOVE-POEMS  625 

Gatschet.1  "With  the  Indians/'  he  says,  "all  these  and 
many  other  erotic  songs  pass  under  the  name  of  puberty 
songs.  They  include  lines  on  courting,  love-sentiments,  dis- 
appointments in  love,  marriage  fees  paid  to  the  parents,  on 
marrying  and  on  conjugal  life."  From  this  collection  I  will 
cite  those  that  are  pertinent  to  our  inquiry.  Observe  that 
usually  it  is  the  girl  that  sings  or  does  the  courting. 

1.  I  have  passed  into  womanhood. 

3.  Who  comes  there  riding  toward  me  ? 

4.  My  little  pigeon,  fly  right  into  the  dovecot ! 

5.  This  way  follow  me  before  it  is  full  daylight. 
9.  I  want  to  wed  you  for  you  are  a  chief  s  son. 

7.  Very  much  I  covet  you  as  a  husband,  for  in  times  to  come  you  will 

live  in  affluence 

8.  She  :  And  when  will  you  pay  for  me  a  wedding  gift? 
He  :  A  canoe  I'll  give  for  you  half  filled  with  water. 

9.  He  spends  much  money  on  women,  thinking  to  obtain  them  easily. 
11.    It  is  not  that  black  fellow  that  I  am  striding  to  secure. 

14.  That  is  a  pretty  female  that  follows  me  up. 

lf>.  That's  because  you  love  me  that  rattle  around  the  lodge. 

27.  Why  have  you  become  so  estranged  to  me? 

37.  I  hold  you  to  be  an  innocent  girl,  though  I  have  not  lived  with  you 

yetH 

38.  Over  and  over  they  tell  me, 

That  this  scoundrel  has  insulted  me. 
52.    Young  chaps  tramp  around  ; 

They  are  on  the  lookout  for  women. 

54.    Girls  :  Young  man,  I  will  not  love  you,  for  you  run  around  with  no 
blanket  on ; 

I  do  not  desire  such  a  husband. 

Boys  :  And  I  do  not  like  a  frog-shaped  woman  with  swollen  eyes.2 

toms  were,  moreover,  as  we  have  seen,  fatal  obstacles  to  the  growth  of  refined 
sexual  feeling.  Both  the  Tupis  and  Guaranis  were  cannibals,  and  they  had  no 
regard  for  chastity.  One  of  their  "  sentimental  "  customs  was  for  a  captor  to 
make  his  prisoner,  before  he  was  paten,  cohabit  with  his  (the  captor's)  sister  or 
daughter,  the  offspring  of  this  union  being  allowed  to  grow  up  and  then  was  de- 
voured too,  the  first  mouthful  being  given  to  the  mother.  (Southey,  I.,  218.)  I 
mention  this  because  Dr.  Brinton  says  that  the  evidence  that  the  sentiment  of 
love  was  awake  among  these  tribes  "is  corroborated  by  the  incidents  we  learn 
of  their  domestic  life." 

1  U.  S.  Qeogr.  and  Geol.  Survey  Rocky  Aft.  Region,  Pt.  I.,  181-89. 

2  It  is  of  the  Modocs  of  this  region  that  Joaquin  Miller  wrote  that  "Indians 
have  their  loves,  and  as  they  have  but  little  else,  these  fill  up  most  of  their  lives. '' 
The  above  poems  indicate  the  quality  of  this  Indian  love.     In  Joaquin  Miller's 
iiarrative  of  his  experience  with  the  Modocs,  the  account  of  his  own  marriage  is 
of  special  interest.     At  a  Modoc  marriage  a  feast  is  given  by  the  girl's  father, 
"  to  which  all  are  invited,  but  the  bride  and  bridegroom  do  not  partake  of  food. 

.  Late  in  the  fall,  the  old  chief  made  the  marriage  feast,  and  at  that  feast 
neither  I  nor  his  daughter  took  meat,  or  any  part."  It  is  a  pity  that  the  rest  of 
this  writer's  story  is,  by  his  own  confession,  part  romance,  part  reality.  A  life- 
like description  of  his  Modoc  experience  would  have  done  more  to  ensure  immor- 
tality for  his  book  than  any  amount  of  romancing. 


626  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

Most  of  these  poems,  as  I  have  said,  were  composed  and 
sung  by  women.  The  same  is  true  of  a  collection  of  Chinook 
songs  (Northern  Oregon  and  adjacent  country)  made  by  Dr. 
Boas.1  The  majority  of  his  poems.,  he  says,  "  are  songs  of  love 
and  jealousy,  such  as  are  made  by  Indian  women  living  in  the 
cities,  or  by  rejected  lovers."  These  songs  are  rather  point- 
less, and  do  not  tell  us  much  about  the  subject  of  our  inquiry. 
Here  are  a  few  samples : 

1.  Yaya, 

When  you  take  a  wife, 

Yaya, 

Don't  become  angry  with  me. 

I  do  not  care. 

2.  Where  is  Charlie  going  now  ? 
Where  is  Charlie  going  now  ? 
He  comes  back  to  see  me, 

I  think. 

3.  Good-by,  oh,  my  dear  Charlie ! 
When  you  take  a  wife 
Don't  forget  me. 

4.  I  don't  know  how  I  feel 
Toward  Johnny. 

That  young  man  makes  a  foe  of  me. 

5.  My  dear  Annie, 

If  you  cast  off  Jimmy  Star, 
Do  not  forget 
How  much  he  likes 
You. 

Of  much  greater  interest  are  the  "  Songs  of  the  Kwakiutl 
Indians/'  of  Vancouver  Island,  collected  by  Dr.  Boas.2  One 
of  them  is  too  obscene  to  quote.  The  following  lines  evi- 
dence a  pretty  poetic  fancy,  suggesting  New  Zealand  poetry  : 

1.   Yl!     Yawa,  wish  I  could and  make  my  true  love  happy,  haigia, 

hayia. 

Yi !     Yawa,  wish  I  could  arise  from  under  the  ground  right  next  to 
my  true  love,  haigia,  hayia. 

>  Journal  of  Amer.  Folklore,  1888,  220-26. 

*  Internal.  Archiv.fur  Ethnogr  ,  Supplement  zu  Bd.  IX.    1896,  pp.  1-6. 


MORE   LOVE-STORIES  627 

Yl !  Yawa,  wish  I  could  alight  from  the  heights,  from  the  heights  of 
the  air  right  next  to  my  true  love,  haigia,  hayia. 

Yl !  Yawa,  wish  I  could  sit  among  the  clouds  and  fly  with  them  to 
my  true  love. 

Yl !     Yawa,  I  am  downcast  on  account  of  my  true  love. 

Yl !     Yawa,  I  cry  for  pain  on  account  of  my  true  love,  my  dear. 

Dr.  Boas  confesses  that  this  song  is  somewhat  freely  trans- 
lated. The  morels  the  pity.  An  expression  like  "my  true 
love,"  surely  is  utterly  un-Indian. 

2.  Anama  !     Indeed  my  strong-hearted,  my  dear. 
Anama !     Indeed,  my  strong  hearted,  my  dear. 
Anama !     Indeed  my  truth  toward  my  dear. 
Not  pretend  1 1  know  having  master  my  dear. 

Not  pretend  I  I  know  for  whom  I  am  gathering  property,  my  dear. 
Not  pretend  1  I  know  for  whom  I  am  gathering  blankets,  my  dear. 

3.  Like  pain  of  tire  runs  down  my  body  my  love  to  you,  my  dear! 
Like  pain  runs  down  my  body  my  love  to  you,  my  dear. 

Just  as  sickness  is  my  love  to  you,  my  dear. 

Just  as  a  boil  pains  me  my  love  to  you,  my  dear. 

Just  as  a  fire  burns  me  my  love  to  you,  my  dear. 

I  am  thinking  of  what  you  said  to  me 

I  am  thinking  of  the  love  you  bear  me. 

I  am  afraid  of  your  love,  my  dear. 

O  pain  !     O  pain ! 

Oh,  where  is  my  true  love  going,  my  dear? 

Oh,  they  say  she  will  be  taken  away  far  from  here.     She  will  leave 

me,  my  true  love,  my  dear. 
My  body  feels  numb  on  account  of  what  I  have  said,  my  true  love, 

my  dear. 
Good-by,  my  true  love,  my  dear.1 


MORE   LOVE-STORIES 

Apart  from  "free  translations"  and  embellishments,  the 
great  difficulty  with  poems  like  these,  taken  down  at  the 
present  day,  is  that  one  never  knows,  though  they  may  be 
told  by  a  pure  Indian,  how  far  they  may  have  been  influenced 
by  the  half-breeds  or  the  missionaries  who  have  been  with 

1  These  lines  by  their  fervid  eroticism  quite  suggest  the  existence  of  a  mascu- 
line Indian  Sappho.  See  the  comments  on  Sappho  in  the  chapter  on  Greek 
love. 


628  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

these  Indians,  in  some  cases  for  many  generations.  The 
same  is  true  of  not  a  few  of  the  stories  attributed  to  Indians. 

Powers  had  heard  among  other  "  Indian"  tales  one  of  a 
lover's  leap,  and  another  of  a  Mono  maiden  who  loved  an 
Awani  brave  and  was  imprisoned  by  her  cruel  father  in  a 
cave  until  she  perished.  "  But/7  says  Powers  (368),  "  neither 
Choko  nor  any  other  Indian  could  give  me  any  information 
touching  them,  and  Choko  dismissed  them  all  with  the  con- 
temptuous remark,  '  White  man  too  much  lie. ' "  I  have  shown 
in  this  chapter  how  large  is  the  number  of  white  men  who 
'*  too  much  lie  "  in  attributing  to  Indians  stories,  thoughts, 
and  feelings,  which  no  Indian  ever  dreamt  of.1 

The  genuine  traditional  literature  of  the  Indians  consists,  as 
Powers  remarks  (408),  almost  entirely  of  petty  fables  about 
animals,  and  there  is  an  almost  total  lack  of  human  legends. 
Some  there  are,  and  a  few  of  them  are  quite  pretty.  Powers 
relates  one  (299)  which  may  well  be  Indian,  the  only  suspicious 
feature  being  the  reference  to  a  "  beautiful "  cloud  (for  Ind- 
ians know  only  the  utility,  not  the  charm,  of  nature). 

"  One  day,  as  the  sun  was  setting,  Kiunaddissi's  daughter 
went  out  and  saw  a  beautiful  red  cloud,  the  most  lovely  cloud 
ever  seen,  resting  like  a  bar  along  the  horizon,  stretching 
southward.  She  cried  out  to  her  father,  '  0  father,  come 

and  see  this  beautiful  [bright  ?]  cloud  !'     He  did  so 

Next  day  the  daughter  took  a  basket  and  went  out  into  the 
plain  to  gather  clover  to  eat.  While  picking  the  clover 
she  found  a  very  pretty  arrow,  trimmed  with  yellow-ham- 
mer's feathers.  After  gazing  at  it  awhile  in  wonder  she 
turned  to  look  at  her  basket,  and  there  beside  it  stood  a  man 
who  was  called  Yang-wi'-a-kan-uh  (Red  Cloud)  who  was 

1  Such  a  procedure  does  well  enough  if  the  object  is  to  amuse  idle  readers  ;  and 
when  a  writer  confesses,  as  Cornelius  Mathews  did  in  the  Indian  Fairy  Book, 
that  he  bestowed  on  the  stories  "  such  changes  as  similar  legends  most  in  vogue  in 
other  countries  have  received  to  adapt,  them  to  the  comprehension  and  sympathy 
of  general  readers,"  no  harm  is  done.  But  for  scientific  purposes  it  is  necessary 
to  sift  down  all  alleged  Indian  stories  and  poems  to  the  solid  bed-rock  of  facts. 
It  is  significant  that  in  the  stories  collected  by  men  of  science  and  recorded 
literally  in  anthropological  journals  all  romantic  and  sentimental  features  are 
conspicuously  absent,  being  often  replaced  by  the  Indian's  abounding  obscenity. 
Rand's  Legends  of  the  Aficmacs  and  Grinnell's  Blackfoot  Loclye  Tales  are  on  the 
whole  free  from  the  errors  of  Schoolcraft  and  his'  followers.  It  ought  to  be 
obvious  to  every  collector  of  aboriginal  folk-lore  that  Indian  tales,  like  the 
Indians  themselves,  are  infinitely  more  interesting  in  war  paint  and  buffalo 
robes  than  in  "  boiled  shirts"  and  "  store-clothes." 


MORE   LOVE-STORIES  629 

none  other  than  the  cloud  she  had  seen  the  day  before.  He 
was  so  bright  and  resplendent  to  look  upon  that  she  was 
abashed  ;  she  modestly  hung  down  her  head  and  uttered  not  a 
word.  But  he  said  to  her,  '  I  am  not  a  stranger.  You  saw  me 
last  night ;  you  see  me  every  night  when  the  sun  is  setting. 
I  love  you  ;  you  love  me  ;  look  at  me  ;  be  not  afraid/  Then 
she  said,  '  If  you  love  me,  take  and  eat  this  basket  of  grass- 
seed  pinole/  He  touched  the  basket  and  in  an  instant  all 
the  pinole  vanished  in  the  air,  going  no  man  knows  whither. 
Thereupon  the  girl  fell  away  in  a  swoon,  and  lay  a  consider- 
able time  there  upon  the  ground.  But  when  the  man  re- 
turned to  her  behold  she  had  given  birth  to  a  son.  And  the 
girl  was  abashed,  and  would  not  look  in  his  face,  but  she  was 
full  of  joy  because  of  her  new-born  son." 

The  Indian's  anthropomorphic  way  of  looking  at  nature 
(instead  of  the  esthetic  or  scientific,  both  of  which  are  as 
much  beyond  his  mental  capacity  as  the  faculty  for  senti- 
mental love)  is  also  illustrated  by  the  following  Dakota  tale, 
showing  how  two  girls  got  married.1 

"  There  were  two  women  lying  out  of  doors  and  looking 
up  to  the  shining  stars.  One  of  them  said  to  the  other,  (  I 
wish  that  very  large  and  bright  shining  star  was  my  hus- 
band/ The  other  said,  *  I  wish  that  star  that  shines  so 
brightly  were  my  husband/  Thereupon  they  both  were  im- 
mediately taken  up.  They  found  themselves  in  a  beautiful 
country,  which  was  full  of  twin  flowers.  They  found  that 
the  star  which  shone  most  brightly  was  a  large  man,  while 
the  other  was  only  a  young  man.  So  they  each  had  a  hus- 
band, and  one  became  with  child." 

Fear  and  superstition  are,  as  we  know,  among  the  obstacles 
which  prevent  an  Indian  from  appreciating  the  beauties  of 
nature.  The  story  of  the  Yurok  siren,  as  related  by  Powers 
(59),  illustrates  this  point : 

"  There  is  a  certain  tract  of  country  on  the  north  side  of 
the  Klamath  River  which  nothing  can  induce  an  Indian  to 
enter.  They  say  that  there  is  a  beautiful  squaw  living  there 
whose  fascinations  are  fatal.  When  an  Indian  sees  her  he 
straightway  falls  desperately  in  love.  She  decoys  him  farther 
and  farther  into  the  forest,  until  at  last  she  climbs  a  tree  and 

1  U.  S.  Geogr.  and  Oeol.  Survey  of  Ttocky  Aft.  fiegion,  IX.,  90. 


630  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

the  man  follows.-  She  now  changes  into  a  panther  and  kills 
him  ;  then,  resuming  her  proper  form,  she  cuts  off  his  head 
and  places  it  in  a  basket.  She  is  now,  they  say,  a  thousand 
years  old,  and  has  an  Indian's  head  for  every  year  of  her 
life." 

Such  tales  as  these  may  well  have  originated  in  an  Indian's 
imagination.  Their  local  color  is  correct  and  charming,  and 
they  do  not  attribute  to  a  savage  notions  and  emotions  foreign 
to  his  mind  and  customs. 


"  WHITE   MAN"   TOO   MUCH   LIE" 

It  is  otherwise  with  a  class  of  Indian  tales  of  which  School- 
craft's  are  samples,  and  a  few  more  of  which  may  here  be 
referred  to.  With  the  unquestioning  trust  of  a  child  the 
learned  Waitz  accepts  as  a  specimen  of  genuine  romantic 
love  a  story1  of  an  Indian  maiden  who,  when  an  arrow  was 
aimed  at  her  lover's  heart,  sprang  before  him  and  received 
the  barbed  shaft  in  her  own  heart  ;  and  another  of  a  Creek 
Indian  who  jumped  into  a  cataract  with  the'  girl  he  loved, 
meeting  death  with  her  when  he  found  he  could  not  escape 
the  tomahawk  of  the  pursuers.  The  solid  facts  of  the  first 
story  will  be  hinted  at  presently  in  speaking  of  Pocahontas  ; 
and  as  for  the  second  story  it  is,  reduced  to  Indian  realism, 
simply  an  incident  of  an  elopement  and  pursuit  such  as  may 
have  easily  happened,  though  the  motive  of  the  elopement 
was  nothing  more  than  the  usual  desire  to  avoid  paying  for 
the  girl.  Such  sentences  as  "  she  loved  him  with  an  inten- 
sity of  passion  that  only  the  noblest  souls  know,"  and  "  they 
vowed  eternal  love ;  they  vowed  to  live  and  die  with  each 
other,"  ought  to  have  opened  Waitz's  eyes  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  not  reading  an  actual  Indian  story,  but  a  story  senti- 
mentalized and  embellished  in  the  cheapest  modern  dime- 
novel  style.  The  only  thing  such  stories  tell  us  is  that 
"white  man  too  much  lie." 

White  woman,  too,  is  not  always  above  suspicion.  Mrs. 
Eastman  assures  us  that  she  got  her  Sioux  legends  from 

1  Related  in  G.  White's  Historical  Collection  of  Georgia,  571. 


"  WHITE   MAN   TOO    MUCH   LIE"  631 

the  Indians  themselves.  One  of  these  stories  is  entitled 
"  The  Track  Maker "  (122-23).  During  an  interval  of 
peace  between  the  Chippewus  and  Dakotas,  she  relates,  a 
party  of  Chippewas  visited  a  camp  of  the  Dakotas.  A 
young  Dakota  warrior  fell  in  love  with  a  girl  included  in  the 
Chippewa  party.  "  Though  lie  would  have  died  to  save  her 
from  sorrow,  yet  he  knew  that  she  could  never  be  his  wife/' 
for  the  tribes  were  ever  at  war.  Here  Mrs.  Eastman,  with 
the  recklessness  of  a  newspaper  reporter,  puts  into  an  Ind- 
ian's head  a  sentiment  which  no  Indian  ever  dreamt  of.  All 
the  facts  cited  in  this  chapter  prove  this,  and,  moreover,  the 
sequel  of  her  own  story  proves  it.  After  exchanging  vows  of 
love  (!)  with  the  Dakotan  brave,  the  girl  departed  with  her 
Chippewa  friends.  Shortly  afterward  two  Dakotas  were 
murdered.  The  Chippewas  were  suspected,  and  a  party  of 
warriors  at  once  broke  up  in  pursuit  of  the  innocent  and  un- 
suspecting party.  The  girl,  whose  name  was  Flying  Shadow, 
saw  her  lover  among  the  pursuers,  who  had  already  com- 
menced to  slaughter  and  scalp  the  other  women,  though  the 
maidens  clasped  their  hands  in  a  "  vain  appeal  to  the  merci- 
less wretches,  who  see  neither  beauty  nor  grace  when  rage 
and  revenge  are  in  their  hearts."  Throwing  herself  in  his 
arms  she  cried,  "  Save  me  !  save  me  !  Do  not  let  them  slay 
me  before  your  eyes  ;  make  me  your  prisoner  !  You  said 
that  you  loved  me,  spare  my  life  !  "  He  did  spare  her  life  ; 
he  simply  touched  her  with  his  spear,  then  passed  on,  and  a 
moment  later  the  girl  was  slain  and  scalped  by  his  compan- 
ions. And  why  did  the  gallant  and  self-sacrificing  lover 
touch  her  with  his  spear  before  he  left  her  to  be  murdered  ? 
Because  touching  an  enemy — male  or  female — with  his  spear 
entitles  the  noble  red  man  to  wear  a  feather  of  honor  as  if  he 
had  taken  a  scalp  !  Yet  he  "  would  have  died  to  save  her 
from  sorrow  "  ! 

An  Indian's  capacity  for  self-sacrifice  is  also  revealed  in  a 
favorite  Blackfoot  tale  recorded  by  Griiinell  (39-42).  A 
squaw  was  picking  berries  in  a  place  rendered  dangerous  by 
the  proximity  of  the  enemy.  Suddenly  her  husband,  who 
was  on  guard,  saw  a  war  party  approaching.  Signalling  to 


632  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

the  squaw,  they  mounted  their  horses  and  took  to  flight. 
The  wife's  horse,  not  being  a  good  one,  soon  tired  out  and 
the  husband  had  to  take  her  on  his.  But  this  was  too  much 
of  a  load  even  for  his  powerful  animal.  The  enemy  gained 
on  them  constantly.  Presently  he  said  to  his  wife:  "Get 
off.  The  enemy  will  not  kill  you.  You  are  too  young  and 
pretty."  Some  one  of  them  will  take  you,  and  I  will  get  a 
big  party  of  our  people  and  rescue  you."  But  the  woman 
cried  "  No,  no,  I  will  die  here  with  you."  f<  Crazy  person/' 
cried  the  man,  and  with  a  quick  jerk  he  threw  the  woman 
off  and  escaped.  Having  reached  the'lodge  safely,  he  paint- 
ed himself  black  and  "  walked  all  through  the  camp  crying." 
Poor  fellow  !  How  he  loved  his  wife  !  The  Indian,  as 
Catlin  truly  remarked,  "is  not  in  the  least  behind  us  in 
conjugal  affection."  The  only  difference — a  trifling  one  to 
be  sure — is  that  a  white  man,  under  such  circumstances, 
would  have  spilt  his  last  drop  of  blood  in  defence  of  his 
wife's  life  and  her  honor. 


THE   STORY   OF   POCAHONTAS 

The  rescue  of  John  Smith  by  Pocahontas  is  commonly  held 
to  prove  that  the  young  Indian  girl,  smitten  with  sudden 
love  for  the  white  man,  risked  her  life  for  him.  This  fanci- 
ful notion  has  however,  been  irreparably  damaged  by  John 
Fiske  (0.  V.,  I.,  102-111).  It  is  true  that  "  the  Indians  de- 
bated together,  and  presently  two  big  stones  were  placed  be- 
fore the  chiefs,  and  Smith  was  dragged  thither  and  his  head 
laid  upon  them  ;  "  and  that  "even  while  warriors  were  stand- 
ing with  clubs  in  hand,  to  beat  his  brains  out,  the  chief's  young 
daughter  Pocahontas  rushed  up  and  embraced  him,  where- 
upon her  father  spared  his  life."  It  is  true  also  that  Smith 
himself  thought  and  wrote  that  "  Pocahontas  hazarded  the 
beating  out  of  her  own  brains  to  save  "  his.  But  she  did  no 
such  thing.  Smith  simply  was  ignorant  of  Indian  customs  : 

"From  the  Indian  point  of  view  there  was  nothing  ro- 
mantic or  "extraordinary  in  such  a  rescue  :  it  was  simply  a  not 
uncommon  matter  of  business.  The  romance  with  which 


VERDICT:     NO    ROMANTIC    LOVE  633 

readers  have  always  invested  it  is  the  outcome  of  a  miscon- 
ception no  less  complete  than  that  which  led  the  fair  dames 
of  London  to  make  obeisance  to  the  tawny  Pocahontas  as  to  a 
princess  of  imperial  lineage.  Time  and  again  it  used  to 
happen  that  when  a  prisoner  was  about  to  be  slaughtered 
some  one  of  the  dusky  assemblage,  moved  by  pity  or  admira- 
tion or  some  unexplained  freak,  would  interpose  in  behalf  of 
the  victim  ;  and  as  a  rule  such  interposition  was  heeded. 
Many  a  poor  wretch,  already  tied  to  the  fatal  tree  and  be- 
numbed with  unspeakable  terror,  while  the  firebrands  were 
heating  for  his  torment,  has  been  rescued  from  the  jaws  of 
death  and  adopted  as  brother  or  lover  by  some  laughing 
young  squaw,  or  as  a  son  by  some  grave  wrinkled  warrior.  In 
such  cases  the  new-comer  was  allowed  entire  freedom  and 
treated  like  one  of  the  tribe.  .  .  .  Pocahontas,  therefore, 
did  not  hazard  the  beating  out  of  her  own  brains,  though  the 
rescued  stranger,  looking  with  civilized  eyes,  would  naturally 
see  it  in  that  light.  Her  brains  were  perfectly  safe.  This 
thirteen-year-old  squaw  liked  the  handsome  prisoner,  claimed 
him,  and  got  him,  according  to  custom." 


VERDICT  :     NO   ROMANTIC   LOVE 

In  the  hundreds  of  genuine  Indian  tales  collected  by  Boas 
I  have  not  discovered  a  trace  of  sentiment,  or  even  of  senti- 
mentality. The  notion  that  there  is  any  refinement  of  pas- 
sion or  morality  in  the  sexual  relations  of  the  American  abo- 
rigines has  been  fostered  chiefly  by  the  stories  and  poems  of 
the  whites — generally  such  as  had  only  a  superficial  acquaint- 
ance with  the  red  men.  "  The  less  we  see  and  know  of  real 
Indians,"  wrote  G.  E.  Ellis  (111),  "  the  easier  will  it  be  to 
make  and  read  poems  about  them."  General  Ouster  com- 
ments on  Cooper's  false  estimate  of  Indian  character,  which 
has  misled  so  many.  "  Stripped  of  the  beautiful  romance 
with  which  we  have  been  so  long  willing  to  envelop  him, 
transferred  from  the  inviting  pages  of  the  novelist  to  the 
localities  where  we  are  compelled  to  meet  with  him  in  his 
native  village,  on  the  warpath,  and  when  raiding  upon  our 
frontier  settlements  and  lines  of  travel,  the  Indian  forfeits 
his  claim  to  the  appellation  of  the  '  noble  red  man""  (1*2). 
The  great  explorer  Stanley  did  not  see  as  much  of  the  Amer- 


634  HOW   AMERICAN   INDIANS   LOVE 

lean  savage  as  of  the  African,  yet  he  had  no  difficulty  in  tak- 
ing the  American's  correct  measure.  In  his  Early  Travels 
and  Adventures  (41-43),  he  pokes  fun  at  the  romantic  ideas 
that  poets  and  novelists  have  given  about  Indian  maidens  and 
their  loves,  and  then  tells  in  unadorned  terms  what  he  saw 
with  his  own  eyes  — Indian  girls  with  "  coarse  black  hair, 
low  foreheads,  blazing  coal-black  eyes,  faces  of  a  dirty,  greasy 
color  " — and  the  Indian  young  man  whose  romance  of  wooing 
is  comprised  in  the  question,  "  How  much  is  she  worth  ?  " 

One  of  the  keenest  and  most  careful  observers  of  Indian 
life,  the  naturalist  Bates,  after  living  several  years  among  the 
natives  of  Brazil,  wrote  concerning  them  (293)  : 

"  Their  phlegmatic,  apathetic  temperament ;  coldness  of 
desire  and  deadness  of  feeling ;  want  of  curiosity  and  slow, 
ness  of  intellect,  make  the  Amazonian  Indians  very  uninter- 
esting companions  anywhere.  Their  imagination  is  of  a  dull- 
gloomy  quality,  and  they  seemed  never  to  be  stirred  by  the 
emotions — love,  pity,  admiration,  fear,  wonder,  joy,  enthu- 
siasm. These  are  characteristics  of  the  whole  race." 

In  Schoolcraft  (V.,  272)  we  read  regarding  the  Creeks  that 
"the  refined  passion  of  love  is  unknown  to  any  of  them, 
although  they  apply  the  word  love  to  rum  or  anything  else 
they  wish  to  be  possessed  of."  A  capital  definition  of  Indian 
love  !  I  have  already  quoted  the  opinion  of  the  eminent  ex- 
pert George  Gibbs  that  the  attachment  existing  among  the 
Indians  of  Oregon  and  Washington,  though  it  is  sometimes  so 
strong  as  to  lead  to  suicide,  is  too  sensual  to  deserve  the  name 
of  love.  Another  eminent  traveller,  Keating,  says  (II.,  158) 
concerning  the  Chippewas  :  "  We  are  not  disposed  to  believe 
that  there  is  frequently  among  the  Chippewas  an  inclination 
entirely  destitute  of  sensual  considerations  and  partaking  of 
the  nature  of  a  sentiment ;  such  may  exist  in  a  few  instances, 
but  in  their  state  of  society  it  appears  almost  impossible  that 
it  should  be  a  common  occurrence."  M'Lean,  after  living  for 
twenty-five  years  among  Indians,  says,  in  writing  of  the  Nas- 
copies  (II.,  127)  :  "  Considering  the  manner  in  which  their 
women  are  treated  it  can  scarcely  be  supposed  that  their 
courtships  are  much  influenced  by  sentiments  of  love ;  in 


VERDICT:    NO   ROMANTIC   LOVE  635 

fact,  the  tender  passion  seems  unknown  to  the  savage  breast." 
From  his  observations  of  Canadian  Indians  Heriot  came  to 
the  conclusion  (324)  that  "  The  passion  of  love  is  of  too  deli- 
cate a  nature  to  admit  of  divided  affections,  and  its  real  in- 
fluence can  scarcely  be  felt  in  a  society  where  polygamy  is 
tolerated."  And  again  (331)  :  "The  passion  of  love,  feeble 
unless  aided  by  imagination,  is  of  a  nature  too  refined  to  ac- 
quire a  great  degree  of  influence  over  the  mind  of  savages." 
He  thinks  that  their  mode  of  life  deadens  even  the  physical 
ardor  for  the  sex,  but  adds  that  the  females  appear  to  be 
"much  more  sensible  of  tender  impressions."  Even  School- 
craft  admits  implicitly  that  Indian  love  cannot  have  been 
sentimental  and  esthetic,  but  only  sensual,  when  he  says 
(Travels,  etc.,  231)  that  Indian  women  are  "without  either 
mental  resources  or  personal  beauty." 

But  the  most  valuable  and  weighty  evidence  on  this 
point  is  supplied  by  Lewis  A.  Morgan  in  his  classical  book, 
The  League  of  the  Iroquois  (320-35).  He  was  an  adopted 
member  of  the  Senecas,  among  whom  he  spent  nearly  forty 
years  of  his  life,  thus  having  unequalled  opportunities  for 
observation  and  study.  He  was  moreover  a  man  of  scien- 
tific training  and  a  thinker,  whose  contributions  to  some 
branches  of  anthropology  are  of  exceptional  value.  His 
bias,  moreover,  is  rather  in  favor  of  the  Indians  than  against 
them,  which  doubles  the  weight  of  his  testimony.  This  testi- 
mony has  already  been  cited  in  part,  but  in  summing  up  the 
subject  I  will  repeat  it  with  more  detail.  He  tells  us  that 
marriage  among  these  Indians  "was  not  founded  on  the  affec- 
tions .  .  .  but  was  regulated  exclusively  as  a  matter  of 
physical  necessity."  The  match  was  made  by  the  mothers, 
and  "not  the  least  singular  feature  of  the  transaction  was 
the  entire  ignorance  in  which  the  parties  remained  of  the 
pending  negotiations  ;  the  first  intimation  they  received  being 
the  announcement  of  their  marriage  without,  perhaps,  ever 
having  known  or  seen  each  other.  Remonstrance  or  objections 
on  their  part  was  never  attempted  ;  they  received  each  other 
as  the  gift  of  their  parents."  There  was  no  visiting  or  court- 
ing, little  or  no  conversation  between  the  unmarried,  no  at- 


636  HOW   AMERICAN    INDIANS   LOVE 

tempts  were  made  to  please  each  other,  and  the  man  regarded 
the  woman  as  his  inferior  and  servant.  The  result  of  such 
a  state  of  affairs  is  summed  up  by  Morgan  in  this  memorable 
passage  : 

"  From  the  nature  of  the  marriage  institution  among  the 
Iroquois  it  follows  that  the  passion  of  love  was  entirely  un- 
known among  them.  Aifections  after  marriage  would  natur- 
ally spring  up  between  the  parties  from  association,  from 
habit,  and  from  mutual  dependence  ;  but  of  that  marvellous 
passion  which  originates  in  a  higher  development  of  the  pas- 
sions of  the  human  heart  and  is  founded  upon  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  affections  between  the  sexes  they  were  entirely  igno- 
rant. In  their  temperaments  they  were  below  this  passion  in 
its  simplest  forms.  Attachments  between,  individuals,  or  the 
cultivation  of  each  other's  affections  before  marriage,  was  en- 
tirely unknown  ;  so  also  were  promises  of  marriage." 

Morgan  regrets  that  his  remarks  "  may  perhaps  divest  the 
mind  of  some  pleasing  impressions"  created  by  novelists  and 
poets  concerning  the  attachments  which  spring  up  in  the 
bosom  of  Indian  society  ;  but  these,  he  adds,  are  "  entirely 
inconsistent  with  the  marriage  institution  as  it  existed  among 
them,  and  with  the  facts  of  their  social  history."  I  may  add 
that  another  careful  observer  who  had  lived  among  the  Ind- 
ians, Parkman,  cites  Morgan's  remarks  as  to  their  incapacity 
for  love  with  approval. 

There  is  one  more  important  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from 
Morgan's  evidence.  The  Iroquois  were  among  the  most  ad- 
vanced of  all  Indians.  "  In  intelligence,"  says  Brinton  (A. 
R.,  82),  "  their  position  must  be  placed  among  the  highest." 
As  early  as  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  great  chief 
Hiawatha  completed  the  famous  political  league  of  the  Iro- 
quois. The  women,  though  regarded  as  inferiors,  had  more 
power  and  authority  than  among  most  other  Indians.  Mor- 
gan speaks  of  the  "  unparallelled  generosity" of  the  Iroquois, 
of  their  love  of  truth,  their  strict  adherence  to  the  faith  of 
treaties,  their  ignorance  of  theft,  their  severe  punishment  for 
the  infrequent  crimes  and  offences  that  occurred  among  them. 
The  account  he  gives  of  their  various  festivals,  their  elo- 
quence, their  devout  religious  feeling  and  gratitude  to  the 


THE   UNLOVING   ESKIMO  637 

Great  Spirit  for  favors  received,  the  thanks  addressed  to  the 
earth,  the  rivers,  the  useful  herbs,  the  moving  wind  which 
banishes  disease,  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  for  the  light  they 
give,  shows  them  to  be  far  superior  to  most  of  the  red  men. 
And  yet  they  were  "  below  the  passion  of  love  in  its  simplest 
forms."  Thus  we  see  once  more  that  refinement  of  sexual 
feeling,  far  from  being,  as  the  sentimentalists  would  have 
us  believe,  shared  with  us  by  the  lowest  savages,  is  in  reality 
one  of  the  latest  products  of  civilization — if  not  the  very 
latest. 

THE   UNLOVING   ESKIMO 

Throughout  this  chapter  no  reference  has  been  made  to  the 
Eskimos,  who  are  popularly  considered  a  race  apart  from  the 
Indians.  The  best  authorities  now  believe  that  they  are  a 
strictly  American  race,  whose  primal  home  was  to  the  south 
of  the  Hudson  Bay,  whence  they  spread  northward  to  Labra- 
dor, Greenland,  and  Alaska.1  I  have  reserved  them  for  sep- 
arate consideration  because  they  admirably  illustrate  the  grand 
truth  just  formulated,  that  a  race  may  have  made  considera- 
ble progress  in  some  directions  and  yet  be  quite  below  the 
sentiment  of  love.  Westermarck's  opinion  (516)  that  the 
Eskimos  are  "  a  rather  advanced  race  "  is  borne  out  by  the 
testimony  of  those  who  have  known  them  well.  They  are  de- 
scribed as  singularly  cheerful  and  good-natured  among  them- 
selves. Hall  says  "  their  memory  is  remarkably  good,  and 
their  intellectual  powers,  in  all  that  relates  to  their  native  land, 
its  inhabitants,  its  coasts,  and  interior  parts,  is  of  a  surpris- 
ingly high  order  "  (I.,  128).  But  what  is  of  particular  interest 
is  the  great  aptitude  Eskimos  seem  to  show  for  art,  and  their 
fondness  for  poetry  and  music.  King 2  says  that  "  the  art  of 
carving  is  universally  practised  "  by  them,  and  he  speaks  01 
their  models  of  men,  animals,  and  utensils  as  "executed  in  a 
masterly  style/'  Brinton  indeed  says  they  have  a  more  artis- 
tic eye  for  picture-writing  than  any  Indian  race  north  of 

!  See  Brinton' s  The  American  Ra  e,  59-67,  for  an  excellent  summary  of  our 
present  knowledge  of  the  Eskimos  (on  the  favorable  side). 
*  Journal  Ethnol.  £oc.,  L,  299. 


638  HOW  AMERICAN  INDIANS  LOVE 

Mexico.  They  enliven  their  long  winter  nights  with  imagi- 
native tales,  music,  and  song.  Their  poets  are  held  in  high 
honor,  and  it  is  said  they  get  their  notion  of  the  music  of 
verse  by  sleeping  by  the  sound  of  running  water,  that  they 
may  catch  its  mysterious  notes. 

Yet  when  we  look  at  the  Eskimos  from  another  point  of 
view  we  find  them  horribly  and  bestially  unaesthetic.  Cranz 
speaks  of  ' '  their  filthy  clothes  swarming  with  vermin."  They 
make  their  oil  by  chewing  seal  blubber  and  spurting  the  liquid 
into  a  vessel.  "  A  kettle  is  seldom  washed  except  the  dogs 
chance  to  lick  it  clean."  .  Mothers  wash  children's  faces  by 
licking  them  all  over.1 

Such  utter  lack  of  delicacy  prepares  us  for  the  statement 
that  the  Eskimos  are  equally  coarse  in  other  respects,  notably 
in  their  treatment  of  women  and  their  sexual  feelings.  It 
would  be  a  stigma  upon  an  Eskimo's  character,  says  Cranz 
(I.,  154),  "if  he  so  much  as  drew  a  seal  out  of  the  water." 
Having  performed  the  pleasantly  exciting  part  of  killing  it, 
he  leaves  all  the  drudgery  and  hard  work  of  hauling,  butcher- 
ing, cooking,  tanning,  shoe-making,  etc. ,  to  the  women.  They 
build  the  houses,  too,  while  the  men  look  on  with  the  greatest 
insensibility,  not  stirring  a  finger  to  assist  them  in  carrying 
the  heavy  stones.  Girls  are  often  "  engaged"  as  soon  as  born, 
nor  are  those  who  grow  up  free  allowed  to  marry  according  to 
their  own  preference.  "  When  friendly  exhortations  are  un- 
availing she  is  compelled  by  force,  and  even  blows,  to  receive 
her  husband."  (Cranz,  I.,  146..)  They  consider  children 
troublesome,  and  the  race  is  dying  out.  Women  are  not  al- 
lowed to  eat  of  the  first  seal  of  the  season.  The  sick  are  left 
to  take  care  of  themselves.  (Hall,  II.,  322,  I.,  103.)  In  years 
of  scarcity  widows  "  are  rejected  from  the  community,  and 
hover  about  the  encampments  like  starving  wolves  . 
until  hunger  and  cold  terminate  their  wretched  existence." 
(M'Lean,  II.,  143.)  Men  and  women  alike  are  without  any 
sense  of  modesty ;  in  their  warm  hovels  both  sexes  divest 
themselves  of  nearly  all  their  clothing.  Nor,  although  they 
fight  and  punish  jealousy,  have  they  any  regard  for  chastity 

1  Cranz,  L,  155,  134;  Hall,  H.,  87,  I.,   187;  Hearne,  161. 


THE    UNLOVING   ESKIMO  639 

per  se.  Lending  a  wife  or  daughter  to  a  guest  is  a  recognized 
duty  of  hospitality.  Young  couples  live  together  on  trial. 
When  the  husband  is  away  hunting  or  fishing  the  wife  has 
her  intrigues,  and  often  adultery  is  committed  sans  gene  on 
either  side.  Unnatural  vices  are  indulged  in  without  secre- 
cy, and  altogether  the  picture  is  one  of  utter  depravity  and 
coarseness.1 

Under  such  circumstances  we  hardly  needed  the  specific 
assurance  of  Rink,  who  collected  and  published  a  volume  of 
Tales  and  Traditions  of  the  Eskimo,  and  who  says  that 
"  never  is  much  room  given  in  this  poetry  to  the  almost  uni- 
versal feeling  of  love."  He  refers,  of  course,  to  any  kind  of 
love,  and  he  puts  it  very  mildly.  Not  only  is  there  no 
trace  of  altruistic  affection  in  any  of  these  tales  and  tradi- 
tions, but  the  few  erotic  stories  recorded  (e.g.,  pp.  236-37) 
are  too  coarse  to  be  cited  or  summarized  here.  Hall,  too, 
concluded  that  "  love — if  it  come  at  all — comes  after  mar- 
riage." He  also  informs  us  (IIvt  313)  that  there  "  generally 
exists  between  husband  and  wife  a  steady  but  not  very  de- 
monstrative affection  ;"  but  here  he  evidently  wrongs  the 
Eskimos;  for,  as  he  himself  remarks  (126),  they  "always 
summarily  punish  their  wives  for  any  real  or  imaginary  of- 
fence. They  seize  the  first  thing  at  hand — a  stone,  knife, 
hatchet,  or  spear — and  throw  it  at  the  offending  woman,  just 
as  they  would  at  their  dogs."  What  could  be  more  "  demon- 
strative" than  such  "  steady  affection  ?" 

'  Hall,  Narrat.  of  Second  Arctic  Exp.,  102  ;  Cranz,  L,  207-12  (German  ed.) ; 
Letourneau,  E.  d.  J£,  72. 


INDIA— WILD   TRIBES   AND   TEMPLE   GIELS 

INDIA,  it  lias  been  aptly  said,  "  forms  a  great  museum  of 
races  in  which  we  can  study  man  from  his  lowest  to  his  high- 
est stages  of  culture."  It  is  this  multiplicity  of  races  and 
their  lack  of  patriotic  co-operation  that  explains  the  conquest 
of  the  hundreds  of  millions  of  India  by  the  tens  of  millions  of 
England.  Obviously  it  would  be  impossible  to  make  any  gen- 
eral assertion  regarding  love  that  would  apply  equally  to  the 
10,000,000  educated  Brahmans,  who  consider  themselves  little 
inferior  to  gods,  the  9,000,000  outcasts  who  are  esteemed  and 
treated  infinitely  worse  than  animals,  and  the  17,000,000  of 
the  aboriginal  tribes  who  are  comparable  in  position  and  cult- 
ure to  our  American  Indians.  Nevertheless,  we  can  get  an 
approximately  correct  composite  portrait  of  love  in  India  by 
making  two  groups  and  studying  first,  the  aboriginal  tribes, 
and  then  the  more  or  less  civilized  Hindoos  (using  this  word 
in  the  most  comprehensive  sense),  with  their  peculiar  cus- 
toms, laws,  poetic  literature,  and  bayaderes,  or  temple  girls. 

In  Bengal  and  Assam  alone,  which  form  but  a  small  corner 
of  this  vast  country,  the  aborigines  are  divided  into  nearly 
sixty  distinct  races,  differing  from  each  other  in  various 
ways,  as  American  tribes  do.  They  have  not  been  described 
by  as  many  and  as  careful  observers  as  our  American  Indians 
have,  but  the  writings  of  Lewin,  Jjralton,  Rowney,  Man, 
Shortt,  Watson  and  Kaye,  and  others  supply  sufficient  data  to 
enable  us  to  understand  the  nature  of  their  amorous  feelings. 


Lewin  gives  us  the  interesting  information  (345-4?)  that 
with  the  Chittagong  hill-tribes  "  women  enjoy  perfect  free- 
dom of  action  ;  they  go  unveiled,  they  would  seem  to  have 

640 


PRACTICAL   PROMISCUITY  041 

equal  rights  of  heritage  with  men,  while  their  power  of  select- 
ing their  own  husband  is  to  the  full  as  free  as  that  of  our  own 
English  maidens."  Moreover,  "  in  these  hills  the  crime  of 
infidelity  among  wives  is  almost  unknown  ;  so  also  harlots 
and  courtesans  are  held  in  abhorrence  amongst  them/' 

On  reading  these  lines  our  hopes  are  raised  that  at  last  we 
may  have  come  upon  a  soil  favorable  to  the  growth  of  true 
love.  But  Lewin's  further  remarks  dispel  that  illusion  : 

"  In  marriage,  with  us,  a  perfect  world  springs  up  at  the 
word,  of  tenderness,  of  fellowship,  trust,  and  self-devotion. 
AVith  them  it  is  a  mere  animal  and  convenient  connection  for 
procreating  their  species  and  getting  their  dinner  cooked. 
They  have  no  idea  of  tenderness,  nor  of  the  chivalrous  devo- 
tion that  prompted  the  old  Galilean  fisherman  when  he  said 
'Give  ye  honor  unto  the  woman  as  to  the  weaker  vessel/ 
The  best  of  them  will  refuse  to  carry  a  burden  if 
there  be  a  wife,  mother,  or  sister  near  at  hand  to  perform 
the  task."  "  There  are  whole  tracts  of  mind,  and  thought, 
and  feeling,  which  are  unknoivn  to  them." 


PRACTICAL    PROMISCUITY 

One  of  the  most  important  details  of  my  theory  is  that 
while  there  can  be  no  romantic  love  without  opportunity  for 
genuine  courtship  and  free  choice,  nevertheless  the  existence 
of  such  opportunity  and  choice  does  not  guarantee  the  pres- 
ence of  love  unless  the  other  conditions  for  its  growth — gen- 
eral refinement  and  altruistic  impulses— coexist  with  them. 
Among  the  Chittagong  hill-tribes  these  conditions — consti- 
tuting "whole  tracts  of  mind,  and  thought,  and  feeling" — 
do  not  coexist  with  the  liberty  of  choice,  hence  it  is  useless  to 
look  for  love  in  our  sense  of  the  word.  Moreover,  when  we 
further  read  in  Lewin  that  the  reason  why  there  are  no  har- 
lots is  that  they  "are  rendered  unnecessary  by  the  freedom 
of  intercourse  indulged  in  and  allowed  to  both  sexes  before 
marriage,"  we  see  that  what  at  first  seemed  a  virtue  is  really 
a  mark  of  lower  degradation.  Some  of  the  oldest  legislators, 
like  Zoroaster  and  Solon,  already  recognized  the  truth  that 
it  was  far  better  to  sacrifice  a  few  women  to  the  demon  of 


642  INDIA— WILD    TRIBES 

immorality  than  to  expose  them  all  to  contamination.  The 
wild  tribes  of  India  in  general  have  not  yet  arrived  at  that 
point  of  view.  In  their  indifference  to  chastity  they  rank 
with  the  lowest  savages,  and  usually  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
promiscuous  indulgence  before  a  mate  is  chosen  for  a  union 
of  endurance.  Among  the  Oraons,  as  Dalton  tells  us  (248), 
"  liaisons  between  boys  and  girls  of  the  same  village  seldom 
end  in  marriage  ;"  and  he  gives  strange  details  regarding  the 
conduct  of  the  young  people  which  may  not  be  cited  here, 
and  in  which  the  natives  see  "  no  impropriety."  Kegarding 
the  Butias  Rowney  says  (142)  :  "  The  marriage  tie  is  so  loose 
that  chastit}^  is  quite  unknown  amongst  them.  The  husbands 
are  indifferent  to  the  honor  of  their  wives,  and  the  wives  do 
not  care  to  preserve  that  which  has  no  value  attached  to  it. 
.  .  .  The  intercourse  of  the  sexes  is,  in  fact,  promiscuous." 
Of  the  Lepchas  Rowney  says  (139)  that  "  chastity  in  adult 
girls  previous  to  marriage  is  neither  to  be  met  with  nor  cared 
for."  Of  the  Mishmees  he  says  (163) :  "Wives  are  not  ex- 
pected to  be  chaste,  and  are  not  thought  worse  off  when  oth- 
erwise," and  of  the  Kookies  (186)  :  "  All  the  women  of  a 
village,  married  or  unmarried,  are  available  to  the  chief  at  his 
will,  and  no  stigma  attaches  to  those  who  are  favored  by  him." 
In  some  tribes  wives  are  freely  exchanged.  Dalton  says  of 
the  Butan  (98)  that  "the  intercourse  between  the  sexes  is 
practically  promiscuous."  Rhyongtha  girls  indulge  in  pro- 
miscuous intercourse  with  several  lovers  before  marriage. 
(Lewin,  121.)  With  the  Kurmuba,  "no  such  ceremony  as 
marriage  exists."  They  "  live  together  like  the  brute  crea- 
tion." (W.  R.  King,  44.) 

My  theory  that  in  practice,  at  any  rate,  if  not  in  form, 
promiscuity  was  the  original  state  of  affairs  among  savages, 
in  India  as  elsewhere,  is  supported  by  the  foregoing  facts,  and 
also  by  what  various  writers  have  told  us  regarding  the  licen>- 
tious  festivals  indulged  in  by  these  wild  tribes  of  India.  "  It 
would  appear,"  says  Dalton  (300),  "that  most  of  the  hill- 
tribes  found  it  necessary  to  promote  marriage  by  stimulating 
intercourse  between  the  sexes  at  particular  seasons  of  the  year. 
At  one  of  the  Kandli  festivals  held  in  November  all 


"MARVELLOUSLY  PRETTY  AND  ROMANTIC"    643 

the  lads  and  lasses  assemble  for  a  spree,  and  a  bachelor  has 
then  the  privilege  of  making  off  with  any  unmarried  girl  whom 
he  can  induce  to  go  with  him,  subject  to  a  subsequent  ar- 
rangement with  the  parents  of  the  maiden."  Dalton  gives  a 
vivid  description  of  these  festivals  as  practised  by  the  Hos  in 
January,  when  the  granaries  are  full  of  wheat  and  the  natives 
"full  of  deviltry:" 

"  They  have  a  strange  notion  that  at  this  period  men  and 
women  are  so  overcharged  with  vicious  propensities,  that  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  person  to  let  off 
steam  by  allowing,  for  a  time,  full  vent  to  the  passions.  The 
festival  therefore  becomes  a  saturnale,  during  which  servants 
forget  their  duties  to  their  masters,  children  their  reverence 
for  parents,  even  their  respect  for  women,  and  women  all 
notions  of  modesty,  delicacy,  and  gentleness ;  they  become 
raging  bacchantes.  .  .  . 

"  The  Ho  population  of  the  village  forming  the  environs  of 
Chaibasa  are  at  other  seasons  quiet  and  reserved  in  manner, 
and  in  their  demeanor  toward  women  gentle  and  decorous  ; 
even  in  the  flirtations  I  have  spoken  of  they  never  transcend 
the  bounds  of  decency.  The  girls,  though  full  of  spirits  arid 
somewhat  saucy,  have  innate  notions  of  propriety  that  make 
them  modest  in  demeanor,  though  devoid  of  all  prudery. 
.  .  .  Since  their  adoption  of  clothing  they  are  careful  to 
drape  themselves  decently  as  well  as  gracefully,  but  they 
throw  all  this  aside  during  the  Magh  feast.  Their  natures 
appear  to  undergo  a  temporary  change.  Sons  and  daughters 
revile  their  parents  in  gross  language,  and  parents  their  chil- 
dren ;  men  and  women  become  almost  like  animals  in  the  in- 
dulgence of  their  amorous  propensities.  They  enact  all  that 
was  ever  portrayed  by  prurient  artists  in  a  bacchanalian 
festival  or  pandean  orgy  ;  and  as  the  light  of  the  sun  they 
adore  and  the  presence  of  numerous  spectators  seem  to  be  no 
restraint  on  their  indulgence,  it  cannot  be  expected  that 
chastity  is  preserved  when  the  shades  of  night  fall  on  such  a 
scene  of  licentiousness  and  debauchery." 


"MARVELLOUSLY   PRETTY   AND 

Nor  are  these  festivals  of  rare  occurrence.  They  last  three 
or  four  days  and  are  held  at  the  different  villages  at  different 
dates,  so  the  inhabitants  of  each  may  take  part  in  "  a  long 


644  INDIA— WILD   TRIBES 

succession  of  these  orgies."  When  Dalton  declares  (206)  re- 
garding these  coarse  and  dissolute  Hos,  who  thus  spend  a 
part  of  each  year  in  "  a  long  succession  of  orgies,"  in  which 
their  own  wives  and  daughters  participate,  that  they  are 
nevertheless  capable  of  the  higher  emotions — though  he  ad- 
mits they  have  no  words  for  them — he  merely  proves  that 
long  intercourse  with  such  savages  blunted  his  own  sensibil- 
ities, or  what  is  more  probable — that  he  himself  never  un- 
derstood the  real  nature  of  the  higher  emotions  —  those 
"  tracts  of  feeling  "  which  Lewin  found  missing  among  the 
hill-tribes.  We  are  confirmed  in  this  suspicion  by  noticing 
Dalton's  ecstatic  delight  over  the  immoral  courtship  cus- 
toms of  the  Bhuiyas,  which  he  found  "marvellously  pretty 
and  romantic  "  and  describes  as  follows  : 

"  In  each  village  there  is,  as  with  the  Oraons,  an  open 
space  for  a  dancing  ground,  called  by  the  Bhuiyas  the  Dar- 
bar ;  and  near  it  the  bachelors'  hall  .  .  .  here  the  young 
men  must  all  sleep  at  night,  and  here  the  drums  are  kept. 
Some  villages  have  a  '  Dhangarin  bassa/  or  house  for  maid- 
ens, which,  strange  to  say,  they  are  allowed  to  occupy  with- 
out anyone  to  look  after  them.  They  appear  to  have  very 
great  liberty,  and  slips  of  morality,  as  long  as  they  are  con- 
fined to  the  tribe,  are  not  much  heeded.  Whenever  the 
young  men  of  the  village  go  to  the  Darbar  and  beat  the 
drums  the  young  girls  join  them  there,  and  they  spend  their 
evenings  dancing  and  enjoying  themselves  without  any  inter- 
ference on  the  part  of  the  elders. 

"  The  more  exciting  and  exhilarating  occasions  are  when 
the  young  men  of  one  village  proceed  to  visit  the  maidens  of 
another  village,  or  when  the  maidens  return  the  call.  The 
young  men  provide  themselves  with  presents  for  the  girls, 
generally  consisting  of  combs  for  the  hair  and  sweets,  and 
going  straight  to  the  Darbar  of  the  village  they  visit,  they 
proclaim  their  arrival  loudly  by  beating  their  drums  and 
tambourines.  The  girls  of  that  village  immediately  join 
them.  Their  male  relations  and  neighbors  must  keep  en- 
tirely out  of  view,  leaving  the  field  clear  for  the  guests.  The 
offerings  of  the  visitors  are  now  gallantly  presented  and  gra- 
ciously accepted  and  the  girls  at  once  set  to  work  to  prepare 
a  dinner  for  their  beaux,  and  after  the  meal  they  dance  arid 
sing  and  flirt  all  night  together,  and  the  morning  dawns  on 
more  than  one  pair  of  pledged  lovers.  Then  the  girls,  if  the 


LIBERTY   OF   CHOICE  645 

young  men  have  conducted  themselves  to  their  satisfaction, 
make  ready  the  morning  meal  for  themselves  and  their 
guests ;  after  which  the  latter  rise  to  depart,  and  still  dan- 
cing and  playing  on  the  drums,  move  out  of  the  village  fol- 
lowed by  the  girls,  who  escort  them  to  the  boundary.  This 
is  generally  a  rock-broken  stream  with  wooded  banks  ;  here 
they  halt,  "the  girls  on  one  side,  the  lads  on  the  other,  and  to 
the  accompaniment  of  the  babbling  brook  sing  to  each  other 
in  true  bucolic  style.  The  song  on  these  occasions  is  to  a 
certain  extent  improvised,  and  is  a  pleasant  mixture  of  rail- 
lery and  love-making.  .  . 

"  The  song  ended,  the  girls  go  down  on  their  knees,  and 
bowing  to  the  ground  respectfully  salute  the  young  men, 
who  gravely  and  formally  return  the  compliment,  and  they 
part. 

"  The  visit  is  soon  returned  by  the  girls.  They  are  received 
by  the  young  men  in  their  Darbar  and  entertained,  and  the 
girls  of  the  receiving  village  must  not  be  seen.  .  .  . 

"They  have  certainly  more  wit,  more  romance,  and  more 
poetry  in  their  composition  than  is  usually  found  among  the 
country  folk  in  India." 


LIBERTY   OF   CHOICE 

All  this  may  indeed  be  "  marvellously  pretty  and  roman- 
tic," but  I  fail  to  see  the  least  indication  of  the  "  higher 
emotions."  Nor  can  I  find  them  in  some  further  interesting 
remarks  regarding  the  Hos  made  by  the  same  author  (192- 
93).  Thirty  years  ago,  he  says,  a  girl  of  the  better  class  cost 
forty  or  fifty  head  of  cattle.  Result — a  decrease  in  the  num- 
ber of  marriages  and  an  increase  of  immoral  intimacies. 
Sometimes  a  girl  runs  away  with  her  lover,  but  the  objection 
to  this  is  that  elopements  are  not  considered  respectable. 

"  It  is  certainly  not  from  any  yearning  for  celibacy  that 
the  marriage  of  Singbhum  maidens  is  so  long  postponed. 
The  girls  will  tell  you  frankly  that  they  do  all  they  can  to 
please  the  young  men,  and  I  have  often  heard  them  pathet- 
ically bewailing  their  want  of  success.  They  make  them- 
selves as  attractive  as  they  can,  flirt  in  the  most  demonstra- 
tive manner,  and  are  not  too  coy  to  receive  in  public  attentions 
from  those  they  admire.  They  may  be  often  seen  in  well- 
assorted  pairs  returning  from  market  with  arms  interlaced, 


646  INDIA— WILD   TRIBES 

and  looking  at  each  other  as  lovingly  as  if  they  were  so  many 
groups  of  Cupids  and  Psyches,  but  with  all  this  the  *  men 
will  not  propose/  Tell  a  maiden  you  think  her  nice-looking, 
she  is  sure  to  reply  *  Oh,  yes  !  I  am,  but  what  is  the  use  of 
it,  the  young  men  of  my  acquaintance  don't  see  it/r 

Here  we  note  a  frankly  commercial  view  of  marriage,  with- 
out any  reference  to  "higher  emotions."  In  this  tribe,  too, 
the  girls  are  not  allowed  the  liberty  of  choice.  Indeed,  when 
we  examine  this  point  we  find  that  Westermarck  is  wrong,  as 
usual,  in  assigning  such  a  privilege  to  the  girls  of  most  of  these 
tribes.  He  himself  is  obliged  to  admit  (224)  that  "  in  many 
of  the  uncivilized  tribes  of  India  parents  are  in  the  habit  of 
betrothing  their  sons.  .  .  .  The  paternal  authority  ap- 
proaches the  patria  potestas  of  the  ancient  Aryan  nations." 
The  Kisans,  Mundas,  Santals,  Marias,  Mishmis,  Bhils,  and 
Yoonthalin  Karens  are  tribes  among  whom  fathers  thus  re- 
serve the  right  of  selecting  wives  for  their  sons  ;  and  it  is 
obvious  that  in  all  such  cases  daughters  have  still  less  choice 
than  sons.  Colonel  Macpherson  throws  light  on  this  point 
when  he  says  of  the  Kandhs  :  "  The  parents  obtain  the  wives 
of  their  sons  during  their  boyhood,  as  very  valuable  domestic 
servants,  and  their  selections  are  avowedly  made  with  a  view 
to  utility  in  this  character." l  Rowney  reports  (103)  that  the 
Khond  boys  are  married  at  the  age  of  ten  and  twelve  to  girls 
of  fifteen  to  sixteen  ;  and  among  the  Reddies  it  is  even  cus- 
tomary to  marry  boys  of  five  or  six  years  to  women  of  sixteen 
to  twenty.  The  "wife,"  however,  lives  with  an  uncle  or 
relation,  who  begets  children  for  the  boy-husband.  When 
the  boy  grows  up  his  "wife  "  is  perhaps  too  old  for  him,  so 
he  in  turn  takes  possession  of  some  other  boy's  "  wife  " 2  The 
young  folks  are  obviously  in  the  habit  of  obeying  implicitly, 
for  as  Dalton  says  (132)  of  the  Kisans,  "  There  is  no  instance 
on  record  of  a  youth  or  maiden  objecting  to  the  arrangement 
made  for  them."  With  the  Savaras,  Boad  Kandhs,  Hos,  and 
Kaupuis,  the  prevalence  of  elopements  shows  that  the  girls 

1  Among  the  Nagas,  we  read  in  Dalton  (43),  "  maidens  are  prized  for  their 
physical  strength  more  than  for  their  beauty  and  family  ;  "  and  the  reason  is  not 
far  to  seek  :  u  The  women  have  to  work  incessantly,  while  the  men  bask  in  the 
stm." 

2Shorttin  Trans.  Ethnol.  Soc.,  N.  S.,  VII.,  464. 


SCALPS   AND   FIELD-MICE  647 

are  not  allowed  their  own  choice.  Lepcha  marriages  are 
often  made  on  credit,  and  are  breakable  if  the  payment  bar- 
gained for  is  not  made  to  the  parent  within  the  specified 
time.  (Rowney,  139.) 1 

SCALPS    AND   FIELD-MICE 

While  among  the  Nagas,  as  already  stated,  the  women 
must  do  all  the  hard  work,  they  have  one  privilege  :  tribal 
custom  allows  them  to  refuse  a  suitor  until  he  has  put  in 
their  hands  a  human  skull  or  scalp  ;  and  the  gentle  maidens 
make  rigorous  use  of  this  privilege — so  much  so  that  in  con- 
sequence of  the  difficulty  of  securing  these  "gory  tokens  of 
love  "  marriages  are  contracted  late  in  life.  The  head  need 
not  be  that  of  an  enemy  :  "  A  skull  may  be  acquired  by  the 
blackest  treachery,  but  so  long  as  the  victim  was  not  a  mem- 
ber of  the  clan/'  says  Dalton  (39),  "  it  is  accepted  as  a  chiv- 
alrous offering  of  a  true  knight  to  his  lady."  Dalton  gives 
another  and  less  grewsome  instance  of  " chivalry"  occurring 
among  the  Oraons  (253). 

"A  young  man  shows  his  inclination  for  a  girl  thus  :  He 
sticks  flowers  in  the  mass  of  her  back-hair,  and  if  she  sub- 
sequently return  the  compliment,  it  is  concluded  that  she 
desires  a  continuance  of  his  attention.  The  next  step  may 

1  For  our  purposes  it  is  needless  to  continue  this  list ;  lout  I  may  add  that  of 
the  very  few  tribes  Westermarck  ventured  to  claim  specifically  for  his  side, 
three  at  any  rate — the  Miris,  Todas,  and  Kols  (Mundas)  do  not  belong  there. 
The  state  of  mind  prevalent  among  the  Miris  is  indicated  by  Dalton's  observa- 
tion (33)  that  "two  brothers  will  unite  and  from  the  proceeds  of  their  joint 
labor  bay  a  wife  between  them."  In  regard  to  the  Todas,  Westermarck  apparently 
forgot  what  he  himself  had  written  about  them  on  a  previous  page  (53),  after 
Shortt :  "  When  a  man  marries  a  girl,  she  becomes  the  wife  of  his  brothers  as 
they  successively  reach  manhood,  and  they  become  the  husbands  of  all  her 
sisters,  when  they  are  old  enough  to  marry."  To  speak  of  "liberty  of  choice  " 
in  such  cases,  or  of  the  marriage  being  only  "ostensibly"  arranged  by  the 
parents,  is  nonsense.  As  for  the  Kols,  what  Dalton  says  about  the  Mundas 
(194)  not  only  indicates  that  parental  interference  is  more  than  "ostensible," 
but  makes  clear  that  what  these  girls  enjoy  is  not  free  choice  but  what  is  eu- 
phemistically called  "free  love,"  before  marriage  :  "  Among  Mundas  having  any 
pretensions  to  respectability  the  young  people  are  not  allowed  to  arrange  these 
affairs  [matrimonial]  for  themselves.  Their  parents  settle  it  all  for  them, 
French  fashion,  and  after  the  liberty  they  have  enjoyed,  and  the  liaisons  they 
are  sure  to  have  made,  this  interference  on  the  part  of  the  old  folk  must  be  very 
aggravating  to  the  young  ones."  If  the  dissolute  or  imbecile  advocates  of  "  free 
love  "  had  their  way,  we  should  sink  to  the  level  of  these  wild  tribes  of  India  ; 
but  there  is  no  danger  of  our  losing  again  the  large  "  tracts  of  mind,  and  thought, 
and  feeling ''  we  have  acquired  since  our  ancestors,  who  came  from  India,  were 
in  such  a  degraded  state  as  these  neighbors  of  theirs. 


648  INDIA— WILD    TRIBES 

be  an  offering  to  his  lady-love  of  some  nicely  grilled  field- 
mice,  which  the  Oraons  declare  to  be  the  most  delicate  of  food. 
Tender  looks  and  squeezes  whilst  both  are  engaged  in  the 
dance  are  not  much  thought  of.  They  are  regarded  merely 
as  the  result  of  emotions  naturally  arising  from  pleasant 
contiguity  and  exciting  strains  ;  but  when  it  comes  to  flowers 
and  field-mice,  matters  look  serious." 


A   TOPSY-TURVY   CUSTOM 

Coyness  as  well  as  primitive  gallantry  has  its  amusing 
phases  among  these  wild  tribes.  The  following  description 
seems  so  much  like  an  extravaganza  that  the  reader  may  sus- 
pect it  to  be  an  abstract  of  a  story  by  Frank  Stockton  or  a 
libretto  by  Gilbert ;  but  it  is  a  serious  page  from  Dal  ton's 
Descriptive  Ethnology  of  Bengal  (63-64).  It  relates  to  the 
Garos,  who  are  thus  described  :  "  The  women  are  on  the 
whole  the  most  unlovely  of  the  sex,  but  I  was  struck  with  the 
pretty,  plump,  nude  figures,  the  merry  musical  voices  and 
good-humored  countenances  of  the  Garos  girls.  Their  sole 
garment  is  a  piece  of  cloth  less  than  a  foot  in  breadth  that 
just  meets  round  the  loins,  and  in  order  that  it  may  not  re- 
strain the  limbs  it  is  only  fastened  where  it  meets  under  the 
hip  at  the  upper  corners/'  But  if  they  have  not  much  to 
boast  of  in  the  way  of  dress,  these  girls  enjoy  a  privilege  rare 
in  India  or  elsewhere  of  making  the  first  advances. 

"  As  there  is  no  restriction  on  innocent  intercourse,  the  boys 
and  girls  freely  mixing  together  in  the  labors  of  the  field  and 
other  pursuits,  an  amorous  young  lady  has  ample  opportu- 
nity of  declaring  her  partiality,  and  it  is  her  privileged  duty 
to  speak  first.  .  .  .  The  maiden  coyly  tells  the  youth  to 
whom  she  is  about  to  surrender  herself  that  she  has  prepared 
a  spot  in  some  quiet  and  secluded  valley  to  which  she  invites 
him.  .  .  .In  two  or  three  days  they  return  to  the  village 
and  their  union  is  then  publicly  proclaimed  and  solemnized. 
Any  infringement  of  the  rule  which  declares  that  the  initia- 
tive shall  in  such  cases  rest  with  the  girl  is  summarily  and 
severely  punished." 

For  a  man  to  make  the  advances  would  be  an  insult  not 
only  to  the  girl  but  to  the  whole  tribe,  resulting  in  fines. 
But  let  us  hear  the  rest  of  the  topsy-turvy  story. 


PAH  ARIA   LADS   AND   LASSES  649 

"  The  marriage  ceremony  chiefly  consists  of  dancing,  sing- 
ing, and  feasting.  The  bride  is  taken  down  to  the  nearest 
stream  and  bathed,  and  the  party  next  proceeds  to  the  house 
of  the  bridegroom,  who  pretends  to  be  unwilling  and  runs 
away,  but  is  caught  and  subjected  to  a  similar  ablution,  and 
then  taken,  in  spite  of  the  resistance  and  the  counterfeited 
grief  and  lamentation  of  his  parents,  to  the  bride's  house." 

It  is  true  that  this  inversion  of  the  usual  process  of  pro- 
posing and  acting  a  comedy  of  sham  coyness  occurs  only  in 
the  case  of  the  poor  girls,  the  wealthy  ones  being  betrothed  by 
their  parents  in  infancy  ;  but  it  would  be  interesting  to  learn 
the  origin  of  this  quaint  custom  from  someone  who  has  had  a 
chance  to  study  this  tribe.  Probably  the  girl's  poverty  fur- 
nishes the  key.  The  whole  thing  seems  like  a  practical  joke 
raised  to  the  dignity  of  an  institution.  The  perversion  of  all 
ordinary  rules  is  consistently  carried  out  in  this,  too,  that 
"if  the  old  people  refuse  they  can  be  beaten 'into  compli- 
ance ! "  That  the  loss  of  female  coyness  is  not  a  gain  to  the 
cause  of  love  or  of  virtue  is  self-evident. 


PAHARIA   LADS   AND   LASSES 

Thus,  once  more,  we  are  baffled  in  our  attempts  to  find 
genuine  romantic  love.  Of  its  fourteen  ingredients  the  altru- 
istic ones  are  missing  entirely.  What  Dal  ton  writes  (248)  re- 
garding the  Oraons,  "  Dhumkuria  lads  are  no  doubt  great 
flirts,  but  each  has  a  special  favorite  among  the  young  girls 
of  his  acquaintance,  and  the  girls  well  know  to  whose  touch 
and  pressure  in  the  dance  each  maiden's  heart  is  especially 
responsive/'  will  not  mislead  any  reader  of  this  book,  who 
will  know  that  it  indicates  merely  individual  preference, 
which  goes  with  all  sorts  of  love,  and  is  moreover,  character- 
istically shallow  here  ;  for,  as  Dalton  has  told  us,  these  village 
flirtations  "  seldom  end  in  marriage."  The  other  ingredients 
that  primitive  love  shares  with  romantic  love — monopoly, 
jealousy,  coyness,  etc.,  are  also,  as  we  saw,  weak  among  the 
wild  tribes  of  India.  Westermarck  (503)  indeed  fancied  he 
had  discovered  the  occurrence  among  them  of  "  the  absorb- 
ing passion  for  one."  "  Colonel  Dalton,"  he  says,  "repre- 


650  INDIA— WILD   TRIBES 

sents  the  Pah  aria  lads  and  lasses  as  forming  very  romantic 
attachments  ;  ' if  separated  only  for  an  hour/  he  says,  'they 
are  miserable/ *  In  reality  Dalton  does  not  "represent 
them  "thus;  he  says  "they  are  represented;"  that  is,  he 
gives  his  information  at  second-hand,  without  naming  his 
authority,  who,  to  judge  by  some  of  his  remarks,  was  appar- 
ently a  facetious  globe-trotter.  It  is  of  course  possible  that 
these  young  folks  are  much  attached  to  each  other.  Even 
sheep  are  "  miserable  if  separated  only  for  an  hour  ; "  they 
bleat  pathetically  and  are  disconsolate,  though  there  is  no 
question  of  a|i"  absorbing  passion  for  one."  What  kind  of 
love  unites  thejsp  Pah  aria  lads  and  lasses  may  be  inferred  from 
the  further  information  given  in  Dal  ton's  book  that  "  they 
work  together,  go  to  market  together,  eat  together,  and  sleep 
together  ;  "  while  indiscretions  are  atoned  for  by  shedding 
the  blood  of  an  animal,  whereupon  all  is  forgiven  !  In  other 
words,  where  Westermarck  found  "  the  absorbing  passion  for 
one,"  a  critical  student  can  see  nothing  but  a  vulgar  case  of 
reprehensible  free  lust. 

And  yet,  though  we  have  found  no  indications  of  true  love, 
I  can  see  reasons  for  Dalton's  exclamation,"  It  is  singular 
that  in  matters  of  the  affections  the  feelings  of  these  semi- 
savages  should  be  more  in  unison  with  the  sentiments  and 
customs  of  the  highly  organized  western  nations  than  with  the 
methodical  and  unromantic  heart-schooling  of  their  Aryan 
fellow-countrymen."  Whether  these  wild  tribes  are  really 
more  like  ourselves  in  their  amorous  customs  than  the  more 
or  less  civilized  Hindoos  to  whom  we  now  turn  our  attention, 
the  reader  will  be  able  to  decide  for  himself  after  finishing 
this  chapter. 


CHILD   MUEDER    AND   CHILD    MARRIAGE 

Twenty  years  ago  there  were  in  India  five  million  more 
men  than  women,  and  there  has  been  no  change  in  that  re- 
spect. The  chief  cause  of  this  disparity  is  the  habitual 
slaughter  of  girl  babies.  The  unwelcome  babes  are  killed  with 
opium  pills  or  exposed  to  wild  beasts.  The  Pundita  Kamabai 


MONSTROUS   PARENTAL   SELFISHNESS         G51 

Sarasvati,  *in  her  agonizing  book,  The  High  Caste  Hindu 
Woman,  writes  with  bitter  sarcasm,  that  "  even  the  wild  ani- 
mals are  so  intelligent  and  of  such  refined  taste  that  they 
mock  at  British  law  and  almost  always  steal  girls  to  satisfy 
their  hunger."  "  The  census  of  1870  revealed  the  curious  fact 
that  three  hundred  children  were  stolen  in  one  year  by  wolves 
from  within  the  city  of  Umritzar,  all  the  children  being  girls." 
Hindoo  females  who  escape  the  opium  pills  and  the  wolves 
seldom  have  occasion  to  congratulate  themselves  therefor. 
Usually  a  fate  worse  than  death  awaits  them.  Long  before 
they  are  old  enough,  physically  or  mentally,  to  marry,  they 
are  either  delivered  bodily  or  betrothed  to  men  old  enough  to 
be  their  grandfathers.  A  great  many  girls  are  married  liter- 
ally in  the  cradle,  says  the  authoress  just  quoted  (31).  "From 
five  to  eleven  years  is  the  usual  period  for  this  marriage 
among  the  Brahmans  all  over  India."  Manu  made  twenty- 
four  the  minimum  age  for  men  to  marry,  but  "  popular  cus- 
tom defies  the  law.  Boys  of  ten  and  twelve  are  now  doomed  to 
be  married  to  girls  of  seven  to  eight  years  of  age."  This  early 
marriage  system  is  "at  least  five  hundred  years  older  than  the 
Christian  era."  As  superstitious  custom  compels  poor  par- 
ents to  marry  off  their  daughters  by  a  given  age  "  it  very 
frequently  happens  that  girls  of  eight  or  nine  are  given  to 
men  of  sixty  or  seventy,  or  to  men  utterly  unworthy  of  the 
maidens."1 

MONSTROUS   PARENTAL  SELFISHNESS 

In  an  article  on  "Child  Marriages  in  Bengal,"2  D.  N. 
Singha  explains  the  superstition  to  which  so  many  millions 
of  poor  girls  are  thus  ruthlessly  sacrificed.  "  It  is,"  he  says, 

1  Statistics  have  shown  that  twenty-eight  per  cent,  of  the  females  were  mar- 
ried before  their  fourth  year.  The  ancient  Sutras  ordained  the  age  of  six  to 
seven  the  best  for  girls  to  marry,  and  declared  that  a  father  who  waits  till  his 
daughter  is  twelve  years  old  must  go  to  hell.  The  evils  are  aggravated  by  the 
fact  noted  by  Dr.  Ryder  (who  gives  many  pathetic  details)  that  a  Hindoo  girl 
of  ten  often  appears  like  an  European  child  of  six,  owing  to  the  weak  physique 
inherited  from  these  girl  mothers.  Yet  Mrs.  Mansell  relates  :  "  Many  p  tiable 
child-wives  have  said  to  me,  'Oh,  Doctor  mem  Sahib,  I  implore  you,  do  give  me 
medicine  that  I  may  become  a  mother.'  I  have  looked  at  their  innocent  faces 
and  tender  bodies,  and  asked,  k  Why  ? '  The  reply  has  invariably  been,  k  My 
husband  will  discard  me  if  I  do  not  bear  a  child.' " 

•'Journal  of  Nat.  Indian  Assoc. ,  1881,  543-49. 


652  INDIA— WIVES   AND   WIDOWS 

"a  well-nigh  universal  conviction  among  Hindoos  that  every 
man's  soul  goes  to  a  hell  called  Foot,  no  matter  how  good 
he  may  have  been.  Nothing  but  a  son's  fidelity  can  release 
or  deliver  him  from  it,  hence  all  Hindoos  are  driven  to 
seek  marriage  as  early  as  possible  to  make  sure  of  a  son." 
"A' son,  the  fruit  of  marriage,  saves  him  from  perdition,  so 
that  the  one  purpose  of  marriage  is  to  leave  a  son  behind 
him."1  A  daughter's  son  may  take  his  sou's  place:  hence 
the  eagerness  to  marry  off  the  girls  young.  In  other  words, 
in  order  to  save  themselves  from  a  hell  hereafter  the  brutal 
fathers  drive  their  poor  little  daughters  to  a  hell  on  earth. 
And  what  is  worse,  public  opinion  compels  them  to  act  in 
this  cruel  manner  ;  for,  as  the  same  writer  informs  us,  the 
man  who  suffers  his  daughter  to  remain  unmarried  till  she 
is  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  old  is  "  subjected  to  endless 
annoyances,  beset  with  stinging  remarks,  unpleasant  whisper- 
ings and  slanderous  gossip.  No  orthodox  Hindoo  will  allow 
his  son  to  accept  the  hand  of  such  a  grown-up  girl."  How 
preventive  of  all  possibility  of  free  choice  or  love  such  a  cus- 
tom is  may  be  inferred  from  another  brief  extract  from  the 
same  article  : 

"  The  superstitious  notion  of  a  Hindoo  parent  that  it  is  a 
sin  not  to  give  his  daughter  in  marriage  before  she  ceases  to 
to  be  a  child  impels  him  urgently  to  get  her  a  husband  before 
she  has  passed  her  ninth  or  tenth  year.  He  sends  out  to 
match-makers  and  spares  no  pains  to  discover  a  bridegroom  in 
some  family  of  rank  equal  or  superior  to  his  own.  Having 
found  a  boy  ...  he  endeavors  to  secure  him  by  entreaty 
or  by  large  offers  of  money  or  jewels." 

The  Pundita  Eamabai  Sarasvati  (22)  gives  some  further 
grewsome  details  which  would  seem  like  the  inventions  of  a 
burlesque  writer  were  they  not  attested  by  such  unbiassed 
authority.  "  Religions  enjoin  that  every  girl  must  be  given  in 
marriage  ;  the  neglect  of  this  duty  means  for  the  father  un- 
pardonable sin,  public  ridicule,  and  caste  excommunication." 

1  The  roots  of  this  superstition,  which  has  created  such  unspeakable  misery  in 
India,  go  back  to  the  oldest  times  of  which  there  are  records.  The  Vedas  say, 
"  Endless  are  the  worlds  for  those  ineu  who  have  sons  ;  but  there  is  no  place  for 
those  who  have  no  male  offspring." 


HOW    HINDOO    GIRLS   ARE    DISPOSED   OF     653 

But  in  the  higher  castes  the  cost  of  a  marriage  is  at  least  $200, 
wherefore  if  a  man  has  several  daughters  his  ruin  is  almost  cer- 
tain. Female  infanticide  is  often  the  result,  but  even  if  the 
girls  are  allowed  to  grow  up  there  is  a  way  for  the  father  to  es- 
cape. There  is  a  special  high  class  of  Brahmans  who  make  it 
their  business  to  marry  these  girls.  They  go  up  and  down  the 
land  marrying  ten,  twenty,  sometimes  as  many  as  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  of  them,  receiving  presents  from  the  bride's  par- 
ents and  immediately  thereafter  bidding  good-by  to  her,  going 
home  never  to  see  their  "  wife  "  again.  The  parents  have  now 
done  their  duty  ;  they  have  escaped  religious  and  social  ostra- 
cism at  the  expense,  it  is  true,  of  their  daughters,  who  remain 
at  home  to  make  themselves  useful.  These  poor  girls  can 
never  marry  again,  and  whether  or  not  they  become  moral  out- 
casts, their  life  is  ruined  ;  but  that,  to  a  Hindoo,  is  a  trifling 
matter  ;  girls,  in  his  opinion,  were  not  created  for  their  own 
sake,  but  for  the  pleasure,  comfort,  and  salvation  of  man. 


HOW   HINDOO   GIRLS   ARE   DISPOSED   OF 

In  some  parts  of  India  the  infant  girls  are  merely  subjected 
to  an  "  irrevocable  betrothal  "  for  the  time  being,  while  in 
others  they  fall  at  once  into  the  clutches  of  their  degraded 
husbands.1  In  either  case  they  have  absolutely  no  choice  in 
the  selection  of  a  life-partner.  As  Dubois  remarks  (I.,  198) : 
"  In  negotiating  marriage  the  inclinations  of  the  future 
spouses  are  never  attended  to.  Indeed,  it  would  be  ridicu- 
lous to  consult  girls  of  that  age  ;  and,  accordingly,  the  choice 
devolves  entirely  upon  the  parents."  "  The  ceremony  of  the 
'  bhanwar/  or  circuit  of  the  pole  or  branch,  is,"  says  Dal  ton 
(148),  "  observed  in  most  Hindu  marriages.  ...  Its 
origin  is  curious.  As  a  Hindu  bridegroom  of  the  upper 
classes  has  no  opportunity  of  trotting  out  his  intended  previ- 

1  Dr.  S.  Armstrong-Hopkins  writes  in  her  recent  volume  Within  the  Purdah 
(51-52)  :  "A  few  years  ago  the  English  Government  passed  a  law  to  the  effect 
that  no  bride  should  go  to  the  house  of  her  mother-in-law  before  she  arrived  at 
the  age  of  twelve  years.  I  am  witness,  however,  as  is  every  practising  physician 
in  India,  that  this  law  is  utterly  ignpred.  .  .  .  Often  and  often  have  I 
treated  little  women  patients  of  five,  six,  seven,  eight,  nine  years,  who  were  at 
that  time  living  with  their  husbands." 


654  INDIA— WIVES   AND   WIDOWS 

ous  to  marriage,  and  she  is  equally  in  the  dark  regarding  the 
paces  of  her  lord,  the  two  are  made  to  walk  around  the  post 
a  certain  number  of  times  to  prove  that  they  are  sound  in 
limb." 

Even  the  accidental  coincidence  of  the  choice  of  a  husband 
with  the  girl's  own  preference — should  any  such  exist — is  ren- 
dered impossible  by  a  superstitious  custom  which  demands 
that  a  horoscope  must  in  all  cases  be  taken  to  see  if  the  signs 
are  propitious,  as  Kamabai  Sarasvati  informs  us  (35),  adding 
that  if  the  signs  are  not  propitious  another  girl  is  chosen. 
Sometimes  a  dozen  are  thus  rejected,  and  the  number  may  rise 
to  three  hundred  before  superstition  is  satisfied  and  a  suita- 
ble match  is  found  !  The  same  writer  gives  the  following 
pathetic  instance  of  the  frivolous  way  in  which  the  girls  are 
disposed  of.  A  father  is  bathing  in  the  river  ;  a  stranger 
comes  in,  the  father  asks  him  to  what  caste  he  belongs,  and 
finding  that  all  right,  offers  him  his  nine-year-old  daughter. 
The  stranger  accepts,  marries  the  child  the  next  day,  and 
carries  her  to  his  home  nine  hundred  miles  away.  These  poor 
child  brides,  she  says,  are  often  delighted  to  get  married,  be- 
cause they  are  promised  a  ride  on  an  elephant  ! 

But  the  most  extraordinary  revelation  made  by  this  doctor  is 
contained  in  the  following  paragraph  which,  I  again  beg  the 
reader  to  remember,  was  not  written  by  a  humorous  globe- 
trotter or  by  the  librettist  of  Pinafore,  but  by  a  native  Hindoo 
woman  who  is  bitterly  in  earnest,  a  woman  who  left  her 
country  to  study  the  condition  of  women  in  England  and 
America,  and  who  then  returned  to  devote  her  life  to  the  at- 
tempt to  better  the  dreadful  fate  of  her  country-women  : 

"  As  it  is  absurd  to  assume  that  girls  should  be  allowed  to 
choose  their  future  husbands,  in  their  infancy,  this  is  done 
for  them  by  their  parents  or  guardians.  In  the  northern 
part  of  this  country  the  family  barber  is  generally  employed 
to  select  the  boys  and  girls  to  be  married,  it  being  considered 
too  humiliating  and  mean  an  act  on  the  part  of  the  parents 
and  guardians  to  go  out  and  seek  their  future  daughters  and 
sons-m-law." 


HINDOOS   FAR   BELOW   BRUTES  655 


HINDOOS   FAR  BELOW  BRUTES 

A  more  complete  disregard  of  the  real  object  of  marriage 
and  of  the  existence  of  love  could  hardly  be  found  among 
clams  and  oysters.  In  their  sexual  relations  the  civilized 
Hindoos  are,  indeed,  far  beneath  the  lowest  of  animals. 
Young  animals  are  never  prevented  by  their  parents  from 
mating  according  to  their  choice  ;  they  never  unite  till  they 
have  reached  maturity  ;  they  use  their  procreative  instinct 
only  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  designed,  whereas  the 
Hindoos — like  their  wild  neighbors — indulge  in  a  perpetual 
carnival  of  lust ;  they  never  kill  their  offspring,  and  they  never 
maltreat  their  females  as  the  Hindoos  do.1  On  this  last  point 
some  more  details  must  be  given  : 

"The  Hindu  is  supposed  to  be,  of  all  creatures  on  earth, 
the  most  generous,  the  most  kind-hearted,  the  most  gentle, 
the  most  sympathetic,  and  the  most  unselfish.  After  living 
for  nearly  seven  years  in  India,  I  must  tell  you  that  the  re- 
verse of  this  is  true.  ...  It  has  been  said  that  among 
the  many  languages  spoken  by  the  people  of  Hindustan  there 
is  no  such  word  as  home,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  understand 
it  ;  that  among  the  languages  spoken  there  is  no  such  word 
as  love,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  know  it.  I  cannot  vouch 
for  the  truth  of  this,  as  I  am  not  acquainted  with  the  lan- 
guages of  India,  but  I  do  know  that  among  all  the  heathen 
people  of  that  country  there  is  no  such  place  as  home,  as  we 
understand  it ;  there  is  no  such  sentiment  as  love,  as  we 
feel  it." 

The  writer  of  the  above  is  Dr.  Salem  Armstrong-Hopkins, 
who,  during  her  long  connection  with  the  Woman's  Hospital 
of  Hyderabad,  Sindh,  had  the  best  of  opportunities  for  ob- 
serving the  natives  of  all  classes,  both  at  the  hospital  and  in 
their  homes,  to  which  she  was  often  summoned.  In  her  book 
Within  the  Purdah  she  throws  light  on  the  popular  delusion 
that  Hindoos  must  be  kind  to  each  other  since  they  are  kind 

1  If  Darwin  had  dwelt  on  such  facts  in  his  Descent  of  Man,  and  contrasted 
man's  vileness  with  the  deyotioi  sympathy,  and  self-sacrifice  shown  by  birds 
and  other  animals,  he  would  have  aroused  less  indignation  among  his  ignorant 
contemporaries.  In  these  respects  it  was  the  animals  who  had  cause  to  resent 
his  theory. 


656  INDIA— WIVES   AND   WIDOWS 

to  animals.  In  Bombay  there  is  even  a  hospital  for  diseased 
and  aged  animals  :  but  that  is  a  result  of  religious  supersti- 
tion, not  of  real  sympathy,  for  the  same  Brahman  who  is 
afraid  to  bring  a  curse  upon  his  soul  by  killing  an  animal 
"  will  beat  his  domestic  animals  most  cruelly,  and  starve  and 
torture  them  in  many  ways,  thus  exhibiting  his  lack  of  kind- 
ness." And  the  women  fare  infinitely  worse  than  the  animals. 
The  wealthiest  are  perpetually  confined  in  rooms  without  table 
or  chairs,  without  a  carpet  on  the  mud  floor  or  picture  on  the 
mud  walls — and  this  in  a  country  where  fabulous  sums  are 
spent  on  fine  architecture.  All  girl  babies  are  neglected,  or 
dosed  with  opium  if  they  cry  ;  the  mother's  milk — which  an 
animal  would  give  to  them — being  reserved  for  their  brothers, 
though  these  brothers  be  already  several  years  old.  Unless 
a  girl  is  married  before  her  twelfth  year  she  is  considered  a 
disgrace  to  the  family,  is  stripped  of  all  her  finery  and  com- 
pelled to  do  the  drudgery  of  her  father's  household,  receiving 
"  kicks  and  abuses  from  any  and  all  its  members,  and  often 
upon  the  slightest  provocation.  Should  she  fall  ill,  no  phy- 
sician is  consulted  and  no  effort  is  made  to  restore  her  health 
or  to  prolong  life."  "The  expression  of  utter  hopelessness, 
despair,  and  misery  "  on  such  a  girl's  face  "  beggars  descrip- 
tion." 

Nor  are  matters  any  better  for  those  who  get  married.  Not 
only  are  they  bestowed  in  infancy  on  any  male — from  an  in- 
fant boy  to  an  old  man  with  many  wives — whom  the  father 
can  secure1 — but  the  daughter-in-law  becomes  "  a  drudge  and 
slave  in  her  husband's  home."  One  of  her  tasks  is  to  grind 
wheat  between  two  great  stones.  "  This  is  very  arduous  labor, 
and  the  slight  little  women  sometimes  faint  away  while  en- 
gaged in  the  task  "  ,  yet  by  a  satanic  refinement  of  cruelty 
they  are  compelled  to  sing  a  grinding  song  while  the  work 
lasts  and  never  stop,  on  penalty  of  being  beaten.  And  though 
they  prepare  all  the  food  for  the  family  and  serve  the  others, 

»Dr.  Ryder  says  in  her  pathetic  book,  Little  Wives  of  India  :  u  A  man 
may  be  a  vile  and  loathsome  creature ;  he  may  be  blind,  a  lunatic,  an  idiot, 
a  leper,  or  diseased  in  any  form  ;  he  may  be  fifty,  sixty,  or  seventy  years  old, 
and  may  be  married  to  a  child  of  five  or  ten,  who  positively  loathes  his  pre<*- 
ence  ;  but  if  he  claims  her  she  must  go.  There  is  no  other  form  of  slavery  equal 
to  it  on  the  face  of  the  earth." 


CONTEMPT   IN   PLACE   OF   LOVE  657 

they  get  only  what  is  left — which  often  is  nothing  at  all,  mid 
many  literally  starve  to  death.  No  wonder  these  poor  creat- 
ures— be  they  little  girls  or  women — all  wear  "  the  same  look 
of  hopeless  despair  and  wretchedness/'  making  an  impression 
on  the  mind  more  pitiable  than  any  disease.  The  writer  had 
among  her  patients  some  who  tried  by  the  most  agonizing 
of  deaths — voluntary  starvation — to  escape  their  misery. 


CONTEMPT   IN    PLACE    OF   LOVE 

No  one  can  read  these  revelations  without  agreeing  with 
the  writer  that  "  the  Hindu  is  of  all  people  the  most  cowardly 
and  the  most  cruel,"  and  that  he  cannot  know  what  real  love 
of  any  kind  is.  The  Abbe  Dubois,  who  lived  many  years 
among  the  Hindoos,  wearing  their  clothes  and  adopting  their 
customs  so  far  as  they  did  not  conflict  with  his  Christian  con- 
science, wrote  (I.,  51)  that  "the  affection  and  attachment 
between  brothers  and  sisters,  never  very  ardent,  almost  en- 
tirely disappears  as  soon  as  they  are  married.  After  that 
event,  they  scarcely  ever  meet,  unless  it  be  to  quarrel." 

Ramabai  Sarasvati  thinks  that  loving  couples  can  be  found 
in  India,  but  Dubois,  applying  the  European  standard,  de- 
clared (I.,  21,  302-303)  :  "  During  the  long  period  of  my  ob- 
servation of  them  and  their  habits,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  have 
ever  seen  two  Hindu  marriages  that  closely  united  the  hearts 
by  a  true  and  inviolable  attachment."  The  husband  thinks 
his  wife  "entitled  to  no  attentions,  and  never  pays  her  any, 
even  in  familiar  intercourse."  He  looks  on  her  "  merely  as 
his  servant,  and  never  as  his  companion."  "  We  have  said 
enough  of  women  in  a  country  where  they  are  considered  as 
scarcely  forming  a  part  of  the  human  species."  And  Ram- 
abai herself  confesses  (44)  that  at  home  "  men  and  women 
have  almost  nothing  in  common."  "The  women's  court  is 
situated  at  the  back  of  the  houses,  where  darkness  reigns 
perpetually."  Even  after  the  second  ceremony  the  young 
couple  seldom  meet  and  talk.  "  Being  cutoff  from  the  chief 
means  of  forming  attachment,  the  young  couple  are  almost 
strangers,  and  in  many  cases  ...  a  feeling  kindred  to 


658  INDIA— WIVES   AND    WIDOWS 

hatred  takes  root  between  them."     There  is  "no  such  thing 
as  the  family  having  pleasant  times  together." 

Dr.  Ryder  thinks  that  for  "  one  kind  husband  there  are 
one  hundred  thousand  cruel  ones,"  and  she  gives  the  follow- 
ing illustration  among  others  : 

"  A  rich  husband  (merchant  caste)  brought  his  wife  to  me 
for  treatment.  He  said  she  was  sixteen,  and  they  had  been 
married  eight  years.  '  She  was  good  wife,  do  everything  he 
want,  wait  on  him  and  eight  brothers,  carry  water  up  three 
flights  of  stairs  on  her  head  ;  now,  what  will  you  cure  her 
for  ?  She  suffer  much.  I  not  pay  too  much  money.  When 
it  cost  too  much  I  let  her  die.  I  don't  care.  I  got  plenty 
wives.  When  you  cure  her  for  ten  shilling  I  get  her  done, 
but  I  not  pay  more/  I  explained  to  him  that  her  medicines 
would  cost  more  than  that  amount,  and  he  left,  saying,  i  I 
don't  care.  Let  her  die.  I  can  have  plenty  wives.  I  like 
better  a  new  wife/  "  l 

Though  the  lawgiver  Manu  wrote  ' '  where  women  are  hon- 
ored there  the  gods  are  pleased,"  he  was  one  of  the  hun- 
dreds of  Sanscrit  writers,  who,  as  Ramabai  Sarasvati  re- 
lates, "  have  done  their  best  to  make  woman  a  hateful 
being  in  the  world's  eye."  Manu  speaks  of  their  "  natural 
heartlessness,"  their  "  impure  desires,  wrath,  dishonesty, 
malice,  and  bad  conduct."  Though  mothers  are  more  hon- 
ored than  other  women,  yet  even  they  are  declared  to  be  "  as 
impure  as  falsehood  itself."  "  I  have  never  read  any  sacred 
book  in  Sanscrit  literature  without  meeting  this  kind  of 
hateful  sentiment  about  women.  .  .  .  Profane  literature 
is  by  no  means  less  severe  or  more  respectful  toward  wom- 
en." The  wife  is  the  husband's  property  and  classed  by 
Manu  with  t(  cows,  mares,  female  camels,  slave  girls,  buffalo 
cows,  she  goats,  and  ewes."  A  man  may  abandon  his  wife  if 
he  finds  her  blemished  or  diseased,  while  she  must  not  even 

1  The  London  Times  of  November  11, 1889,  had  the  following  in  its  column 
about  India : 

"  Two  shocking  cases  of  wife  killing  lately  came  before  the  courts,  in  both 
cases  the  result  of  child  marriage.  In  one  a  child  aged  ten  was  strangled  by  her 
husband.  In  the  second  case  a  child  of  tender  years  was  ripped  open  with  a 
wooden  peg.  Brutal  sexual  exasperation  was  the  sole  apparent  reason  in  both 
instances.  Compared  with  the  terrible  evils  of  child  marriage,  widow  crema- 
tion is  of  infinitely  inferior  magnitude." 


WIDOWS   AND   THEIR   TORMENTORS          659 

show  disrespect  to  a  husband  who  is  diseased,  addicted  to 
evil  passions,  or  a  drunkard.  If  she  does  she  shall  be  de- 
serted for  three  months  and  deprived  of  her  ornaments  and 
furniture.1  Even  British  rule  has  not  been  able  to  improve 
the  condition  of  woman,  for  the  British  Government  is  bound 
by  treaties  not  to  interfere  with  social  and  religious  customs  ; 
hence  many  pathetic  cases  are  witnessed  in  the  courts  of  un- 
willing girls  handed  over,  in  accordance  with  national  custom, 
to  the  loathed  husbands  selected  for  them.  "  The  gods  and 
justice  always  favor  the  men."  "  Many  women  put  an  end 
to  their  earthly  sufferings  by  committing  suicide." 

WIDOWS   A]STD  THEIR  TORMENTORS 

If  anything  can  cast  a  ray  of  comfort  into  the  wretched 
life  of  a  Hindoo  maiden  or  wife  it  is  the  thought  that,  after 
all,  she  is  much  better  off  than  if  she  were  a  widow — though, 
to  be  sure,  she  runs  every  risk  of  becoming  one  ere  she  is 
old  enough  to  be  considered  marriageable  in  any  country 
where  women  are  regarded  as  human  beings.  In  considering 
the  treatment  of  Hindoo  widows  we  reach  the  climax  of 

1  Manu's  remark  that  "where  women  are  honored  there  the  gods  are  pleased  " 
is  one  of  those  expressions  of  unconscious  humor  which  naturally  escaped  him, 
but  should  not  have  escaped  European  sociologists.  What  he  understands  by 
44  honoring  women  "  may  be  gathered  from  many  maxims  in  his  volume  like  the 
following  (the  references  being  to  the  pages  of  Burnell  and  Hopkins's  version) : 
44  This  is  the  nature  of  women,  to  seduce  men  here"  (40) ;  u  One  should  not  be 
seated  in  a  secluded  place  with  a  mother,  sister,  or  daughter ;  the  powerful 
host  of  the  senses  compels  even  a  wise  man  "  (41).  "No act  is  to  be  done  ac- 
cording to  (her)  own  will  by  a  young  girl,  a  young  woman,  or  even  by  an  old 
woman,  though  in  (their  own)  houses."  "In  her  childhood  (a  girl)  should  be 
under  the  will  of  her  father;  in  (her)  youth,  of  (her)  husband;  her  husband 
being  dead,  of  her  sons;  a  woman  should  never  enjoy  her  own  will"  (130). 
44  Though  of  bad  conduct  or  debauched,  or  even  devoid  of  good  qualities,  a  hus- 
band must  always  be  worshipped  like  a  god  by  a  good  wife."  "  For  women  there 
is  no  separate  sacrifice,  nor  vow,  nor  even  fast ;  if  a  woman  obeys  her  husband, 
by  that  she  is  exalted  in  heaven"  (131).  "Day  and  night  should  women  be 
kept  by  the  male  members  of  the  family  in  a  state  of  dependence"  (245). 
.  .  .  "  Women  being  weak  creatures,  and  having  no  share  in  the  mantras, 
are  falsehood  itself  "  (247). 

Quite  in  the  spirit  of  these  ordinances  of  the  great  Manu  are  the  directions 
for  wives  given  in  the  Padma  Purana,  one  of  the  books  of  highest  authority, 
whose  rules  are,  as  Dubois  informs  us  (316),  kept  up  in  full  vigor  to  this  day. 
A  wife,  we  read  therein,  must  regard  her  husband  as  a  god,  though  he  be  a  very 
devil.  She  must  laugh  if  he  laughs,  eat  after  him,  abstain  from  food  which  he 
dislikes,  burn  herself  after  his  death.  If  he  has  another  wife  she  must  not  in- 
terfere, must  always  keep  her  eyes  on  her  master,  ready  to  receive  his  com- 
mands ;  she  must  never  be  gloomy  or  discontented  in  his  presence  ;  and  though 
he  abuse  or  even  beat  her  she  must  return  only  meek  and  soothing  words. 


660  INDIA— WIVES   AND   WIDOWS 

inhuman  cruelty — a  cruelty  far  exceeding  that  practised  by 
American  Indians  toward  female  prisoners,  because  more  pro- 
longed and  involving  mental  as  well  as  physical  agonies. 

In  1881  there  were  in  British  India  alone  20,930,000  wid- 
ows, 669,000  of  whom  were  under  nineteen,  and  78,976  under 
nine  years  of  age.1  Now  a  widow's  life  is  naturally  apt  to 
be  one  of  hardship  because  she  has  lost  her  protector  and 
bread-winner ;  but  in  India  the  tragedy  of  her  fate  is  deep- 
ened a  thousandfold  by  the  diabolical  ill-treatment  of  which 
she  is  made  the  innocent  victim.  A  widow  who  has  borne 
sons  or  who  is  aged  is  somewhat  less  despised  than  the  child 
widow ;  on  her  falls  the  worst  abuse  and  hatred  of  the  com- 
munity, though  she  be  as  innocent  of  any  crime  as  an  angel. 
In  the  eyes  of  a  Hindoo  the  mere  fact  of  being  a  widow  is  a 
crime — the  crime  of  surviving  her  husband,  though  he  may 
have  been  seventy  and  the  wife  seven. 

All  women  love  their  soft  glossy  hair  ;  and  a  Hindoo  woman, 
says  Ramabai  Sarasvati  (82),  "  thinks  it  worse  than  death  to 
lose  her  hair  "  ;  yet  "  among  the  Brahmans  of  'Deccan  the 
heads  of  all  widows  must  be  shaved  regularly  every  fort- 
night." "Shaved  head"  is  a  term  of  derision  everywhere 
applied  to  the  widows.  All  their  ornaments  are  taken  from 
them  and  they  are  excluded  from  every  ceremony  of  joy. 
The  name  "rand"  given  to  a  widow  "is  the  same  that  is 
borne  by  a  Nautch  girl  or  a  harlot."  One  poor  woman  wrote 
to  a  missionary : 

"0  great  Lord,  our  name  is  written  with  drunkards,  with 
lunatics,  with  imbeciles,  with  the  very  animals  ;  as  they  are 
not  responsible,  we  are  not.  Criminals  confined  in  jails  for 
life  are  happier  than  we." 

Another  of  these  widows  wrote:2  "While  our  husbands 
live  we  are  their  slaves,  when  they  die  we  are  still  worse  off." 
The  husband's  funeral,  she  says,  may  last  all  day  in  a  broiling 
sun,  and  while  the  others  are  refreshed,  she  alone  is  denied 

1  In  Calcutta  nearly  one-half  the  females — 42,824  out  of  98,627 — were  widows. 
In  India  in  general  one-fifth  of  the  women  (or,  excluding  the  Mohammedans, 
one-third)  are  widows. 

a  Journal  of  the  National  Indian  Assoc.,  1881,  624-30. 


WIDOWS  AND   THEIR   TORMENTORS          661 

food  and  water.  After  returning  she  is  reviled  by  her  own 
relatives.  Her  mother  says  :  "  Unhappy  creature  !  I  can't 
hear  the  thought  of  anyone  so  vile.  I  wish  she  had  never 
been  born."  Her  mother-in-law  says  :  "  The  horned  viper  ! 
She  has  bitten  my  son  and  killed  him,  and  now  he  is  dead, 
and  she,  useless  creature,  is  left  behind."  It  is  impossible 
for  her  to  escape  this  fate  by  marrying  again.  The  bare  men- 
tion of  remarriage  by  a  widow,  though  she  be  only  eight  or 
nine  years  old,  would  be  regarded,  says  Dubois  (I.,  191),  "  as 
the  greatest  of  insults."  Should  she  marry  again  "  she 
would  be  hunted  out  of  society,  and  no  decent  person  would 
venture  at  any  time  to  have  the  slightest  intercourse  with 
her."  Attempts  have  been  made  in  recent  times  by  liberal- 
minded  men  to  marry  widows;  but  they  were  subjected  to  so 
much  odium  and  persecution  therefor  that  they  were  driven 
to  suicide. 

When  a  widow  dies  her  corpse  is  disposed  of  with  hardly 
any  ceremony.  Should  a  widow  try  to  escape  her  fate  the 
only  alternatives  are  suicide  or  a  life  of  shame.  To  a  Hindoo 
widow,  says  Ramabai  Sarasvati,  death  is  "  a  thousand  times 
more  welcome  than  her  miserable  existence."  It  is  for  this 
reason  that  the  suttee  or  "voluntary  "  burning  of  widows  on 
the  husband's  funeral  pyre — the  climax  of  inhuman  atrocity 
— lost  some  of  its  horrors  to  the  victims  until  the  moment  of 
agony  arrived.  I  have  already  (p.  317)  refuted  the  absurd 
whim  that  this  voluntary  death  of  Hindoo  widows  was  a  proof 
of  their  conjugal  devotion.  It  was  proof,  on  the  contrary, 
of  the  unutterably  cruel  selfishness  of  the  male  Hindoos, 
who  actually  forged  a  text  to  make  the  suttee  seem  a  religious 
duty — a  forgery  which  during  two  thousand  years  caused  the 
death  of  countless  innocent  women.  Best  was  told  that  the 
real  cause  of  widow-burning  was  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the 
men  to  put  an  end  to  the  frequent  murders  of  husbands  by 
their  cruelly  treated  wives  (Reich,  212).  However  that  may 
be,  the  suttee  in  all  probability  was  due  to  the  shrewd  calcu- 
lation that  the  fear  of  being  burned  alive,  or  being  more 
despised  and  abused  than  the  lowest  outcasts,  would  make 
women  more  eager  to  follow  obediently  the  code  which  makes 


662  INDIA— WIVES  AND   WIDOWS 

of  them  abject  slaves  of  their  husbands,  living  only  for  them 
and  never  having  a  thought  or  a  care  for  themselves. 


HINDOO   DEPRAVITY 

Since,  as  Ward  attests  (116),  the  young  widows  "without 
exception,  become  abandoned  women,"  it  is  obvious  that  one 
reason  why  the  priests  were  so  anxious  to  prevent  them  from 
marrying  again  was  to  insure  an  abundant  supply  of  victims 
for  their  immoral  purposes.  The  hypocritical  Brahmans  were 
not  only  themselves  notorious  libertines,  but  they  shrewdly 
calculated  that  the  simplest  way  to  win  the  favor  and  secure 
control  of  the  Indian  populace  was  by  pandering  to  their 
sensual  appetites  and  supplying  abundant  opportunities  and 
excuses  for  their  gratification — making  these  opportunities, 
in  fact,  part  and  parcel  of  their  religious  ceremonies.  Their 
temples  and  their  sacred  carts  which  traversed  the  streets 
were  decorated  with  obscene  pictures  of  a  peculiarly  dis- 
gusting kind,1  which  were  freely  exposed  to  the  gaze  of  old 
and  young  of  both  sexes  ;  their  temples  were  little  more 
than  nurseries  for  the  rearing  of  bayaderes,  a  special  class  of 
"  sacred  prostitutes ; "  while  scenes  of  promiscuous  de- 
bauchery sometimes  formed  part  of  the  religious  ceremony, 
usually  under  some  hypocritical  pretext. 

It  would  be  unjust,  however,  to  make  the  Brahman  priests 
entirely  responsible  for  Hindoo  depravity.  It  has  indeed 
been  maintained  that  there  was  a  time  when  the  Hindoos 
were  free  from  all  the  vices  which  now  afflict  them  ;  but  that 
is  one  of  the  silly  myths  of  ignorant  dreamers,  on  a  level  with 
the  notion  that  savages  were  corrupted  by  whites.  One  of  the 
oldest  Hindoo  documents,  the  MaUabharata,  gives  us  the  na- 
tive traditions  concerning  these  "good  old  times"  in  two 
sentences  :  "  Though  in  their  youthful  innocence  the  women 
abandoned  their  husbands,  they  were  guilty  of  no  offence  ; 
for  such  was  the  rule  in  early  times."  "Just  as  cattle  are 
situated,  so  are  human  beings,  too,  within  their  respective 
castes  "  which  suggests  a  state  of  promiscuity  as  decided  as 

i  Ploss-Bartels,  I.,  385-87 ;  Lamairesse,  18,  95,  XX.,  etc. 


HINDOO    DEPRAVITY  663 

that  which  prevailed  in  Australia.  Civilization  did  not  teach 
the  Hindoos  love — for  that  comes  last — but  merely  the  re- 
finements of  lust,  such  as  even  the  Greeks  and  Eomans 
hardly  knew.  Ovid's  Ars  Amandi  is  a  model  of  purity  com- 
pared with  the  Hindoo  "  Art  of  Love/'  the  Kdmasutram  (or 
Kama  Soutra)  of  Vatsyayana,  which  is  nothing  less  than  a 
handbook  for  libertines,  of  which  it  would  be  impossible 
even  to  print  the  table  of  contents.  Whereas  the  translator 
of  Ovid  into  a  modern  language  need  not  omit  more  than  a 
page  of  the  text,  the  German  translator  of  the  Kdmasutram, 
Dr.  Kichard  Schmidt,  who  did  his  work  in  behalf  of  the  Kgl. 
Akademie  der  Wissenschaften  zu  Berlin,  felt  it  incumbent  on 
him  to  turn  more  than  fifty  pages  out  of  four  hundred  and 
seventy  into  Latin.  Yet  the  author  of  this  book,  who  lived 
about  two  thousand  years  ago;  recommends  that  every  one, 
including  young  girls,  should  study  it.  In  India,  as  his 
French  translator,  Lamairesse,  writes,  "  everything  is  done 
to  awaken  carnal  desires  even  in  young  children  of  both 
sexes/'  The  natural  result  is  that,  as  the  same  writer  remarks 
(186)  :  "  Les  categories  des  femmes  faciles  sont  si  nombreuses 
qu'elles  doivent  comprendre  presque  toutes  les  personnes  du 
sexe.  Aussi  un  ministre  protestant  ecrivait-il  au  milieu  de  no- 
tre  siecle  qu'il  n'existait  presque  point  de  femmes  vertueuses 
dans  1'Inde."  The  Rev.  William  Ward  wrote  (162)  in  1824  : 

"  It  is  a  fact  which  greatly  perplexes  many  of  the  well-in- 
formed Hindus,  that  notwithstanding  the  wives  of  Europeans 
are  seen  in  so  many  mixed  companies,  they  remain  chaste  ; 
while  their  wives,  though  continually  secluded,  watched,  and 
veiled,  are  so  notoriously  corrupt.  I  recollect  the  observation 
of  a  gentleman  who  had  lived  nearly  twenty  years  in  Bengal, 
whose  opinions  on  such  a  subject  demanded  the  highest  re- 
gard, that  the  infidelity  of  the  Hindu  women  was  so  great 
that  he  scarcely  thought  there  was  a  single  instance  of  a 
wife  who  had  been  always  faithful  to  her  husband."1 

i  Here  again  we  must  guard  against  the  naive  error  of  benevolent  observers  of 
confounding  chastity  with  an  assumption  of  modest  behavior.  In  describing 
the  streets  of  Delhi  Ida  Pfeiffer  says  (L.  V.  R.  W,  148) :  "The  prettiest  girlish 
faces  peep  modestly  out  of  these  curtained  bailis,  and  did  one  not  know  that  in 
India  an  unveiled  face  is  never  an  innocent  one,  the  fact  certainly  could  not  be 
divined  from  their  looks  or  behavior. "  It  happens  to  be  the  fashion  even  for 
bayaderes  to  preserve  an  appearance  of  great  propriety  in  public. 


664  INDIA— TEMPLE    GIRLS 


TEMPLE    GIRLS 

The  Brahman  priests,  who  certainly  knew  their  people 
well,  had  so  little  faith  in  their  virtue  that  they  would  not 
accept  a  girl  to  be  brought  up  for  temple  service  if  she  was 
over  five  years  old.  She  had  to  be  not  only  pure  but  physi- 
cally flawless  and  sound  in  health.  Yet  her  purity  was  not 
valued  as  a  virtue,  but  as  an  article  of  commerce.  The  Brah- 
mans  utilized  the  charms  of  these  girls  for  the  purpose  of 
supporting  the  temples  with  their  sinful  lives,  their  gains 
being  taken  from  them  as  "  offerings  to  the  gods."  As  soon 
as  a  girl  was  old  enough  she  was  put  up  at  auction  and  sold 
to  the  highest  bidder.  If  she  was  specially  attractive  the  bids 
would  sometimes  reach  fabulous  sums,  it  being  a  point  of 
honor  and  eager  rivalry  among  Rajahs  and  other  wealthy 
men,  young  and  old,  to  .become  the  possessors  of  bayadere 
debutantes.  Temporarily  only,  of  course,  for  these  girls 
were  never  allowed  to  marry.  While  they  were  connected 
with  the  temple  they  could  give  themselves  to  anyone  they 
chose,  the  only  condition  being  that  they  must  never  re- 
fuse a  Brahman  (Jacolliot,  109-76).  The  bayaderes,  says 
Dubois,  call  themselves  Deva-dasi,  servants  or  slaves  of  the 
gods,  "  but  they  are  known  to  the  public  by  the  coarser  name 
of  strumpets."  They  are,  next  to  the  sacrificers,  the  most  im- 
portant persons  about  the  temples.  While  the  poor  widows 
who  had  been  respectably  married  are  deprived  of  all  orna- 
ments and  joys  of  life,  these  wantons  are  decked  with  fine 
clothes,  flowers,  and  jewelry  ;  and  gold  is  showered  upon 
them.  The  bayadere  VRF.J  itasena  is  described  by  the  poet 
Cudraka  as  always  wearr  a  hundred  gold  ornaments,  living 
in  her  own  palace,  whic1  nas  eight  luxurious  courts,  and  on 
one  occasion  refusing  M  unwelcome  suitor  though  he  sent 
100,000  gold  pieces. 

Bayaderes  are  supposed  to  be  originally  descendants  of  the 
apsaras,  or  dancing  girls  of  the  god  Indra,  the  Hindoo  Jupi- 
ter. In  reality  they  are  recruited  from  various  castes,  some 
parents  making  it  a  point  to  offer  their  third  daughter  to  the 
Brahmans.  Bands  of  the  bayaderes  are  engaged  by  the  best 


AN   INDIAN   ASPASIA  665 

families  to  provide  dancing  and  music,  especially  at  weddings. 
To  have  dealings  with  bayaderes  is  not  only  in  good  form,  but 
is  a  meritorious  thing,  since  it  helps  to  support  the  temples. 
And  yet,  when  one  of  these  girls  dies  she  is  not  cremated  in 
the  same  place  as  other  women,  and  her  ashes  are  scattered 
to  the  winds.  In  some  provinces  of  Bengal,  Jacolliot  says, 
she  is  only  half  burnt,  and  the  body  then  thrown  to  the 
jackals  and  vultures. 

The  temple  of  Sunnat  had  as  many  as  five  hundred  of  these 
priestesses  of  Venus,  and  a  Rajah  has  been  known  to  enter- 
tain as  many  as  two  thousand  of  them.  Bayaderes,  or  Nautch 
girls,  as  they  are  often  called  in  a  general  way,  are  of  many 
grades.  The  lowest  go  about  the  country  in  bands,  while  the 
highest  may  rise  to  the  rank  and  dignity  of  an  Aspasia.  To 
the  former  class  belong  those  referred  to  by  Lowrie  (148) 
— a  band  of  twenty  girls,  all  unveiled  and  dressed  in  their 
richest  finery,  who  wanted  to  dance  for  his  party  and  were 
greatly  disappointed  when  refused.  Most  of  them  were  very 
young — about  ten  or  eleven  years  old."  Their  course  is 
brief  ;  they  soon  lose  their  charms,  are  discarded,  and  end 
their  lives  as  beggars. 

AN   INDIAN   ASPASIA 

A  famous  representative  of  the  superior  class  of  bayaderes 
is  the  heroine  of  King  ^udraka's  drama  just  referred  to — Va- 
santasena.  She  has  amassed  immense  wealth — the  description 
of  her  palace*takes  up  several  pages — and  is  one  of  the  best 
known  personages  in  town,  yet  that  does  not  prevent  her 
from  being  spoken  of  repeatedly  as  "  a  noble  woman)  the  jewel 
of  the  city." l  She  is,  indeed,  represented  as  differing  in  her 
love  from  other  bayaderes,  and,  as  she  herself  remarks, 
"  a  bayadere  is  not  reprehensible  in  the  eyes  of  the  world  if 
she  gives  her  heart  to  a  poor  man."  She  sees  the  Brah- 

1  Pp.  143  and  160  of  Kellner's  edition  of  this  drama  (Reclam).  The  extent,  to 
which  indifference  to  ch.istity  is  sometimes  carried  in  India  may  be  inferred  from 
the  facts  that  in  the  famous  city  of  Vasali  "  marriage  was  forbidden,  and  high 
rank  attached  to  the  lady  who  hel  \  office  as  the  chief  of  courtesans  ;  "  and  thab 
the  same  condition  prevails  in  British  India  to  this  day  in  a  town  in  North 
Canara  (Balfour,  Cyclop,  of  India,  II.,  873). 


666  INDIA— TEMPLE    GIRLS 

man  Tscharudatta  in  the  temple  garden  of  Kama,  the 
god  of  love,  and  forthwith  falls  in  love  with  him,  as  he 
does  with  her,  though  he  is  married.  One  afternoon  she 
is  accosted  in  the  street  by  a  relative  of  the  king,  who  annoys 
her  with  his  unwelcome  attentions.  She  takes  refuge  in  her 
lover's  house  and,  on  the  pretext  that  she  has  been  pursued 
on  account  of  her  ornaments,  leaves  her  jewelry  in  his  charge. 
The  jewels  are  stolen  during  the  night,  and  this  mishap  leads 
to  a  series  of  others  which  finally  culminate  in  Tscharudatta 
being  led  out  to  execution  for  the  alleged  murder  of  Va- 
santasena.  At  the  last  moment  Vasantasena,  who  had  been 
strangled  by  the  king's  relative,  but  has  been  revived,  appears 
on  the  scene,  and  her  lover's  life  is  saved,  as  well  as  his  honor. 
The  royal  author  of  this  drama,  who  has  been  called  the 
Shakspere  of  India,  probably  lived  in  one  of  the  first  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  era.  His  play  may  in  a  certain  sense 
be  regarded  as  a  predecessor  of  Manon  Lescaut  and  Camille, 
inasmuch  as  an  attempt  is  made  in  it  to  ascribe  to  the  hero- 
ine a  delicacy  of  feeling  to  which  women  of  her  class  are 
naturally  strangers.  She  hesitates  to  make  advances  to 
Tscharudatta,  and  at  first  wonders  whether  it  would  be 
proper  to  remain  in  his  house.  See  informs  her  pursuer  that 
"love  is  won  by  noble  character,  not  by  importunate  ad- 
vances. "  Tscharudatta  says  of  her  :  "  There  is  a  proverb 
that  '  money  makes  love  —  the  treasurer  has  the  treasure/ 
But  no  !  she  certainly  cannot  be  won  with  treasures."  She  is 
in  fact  represented  throughout  as  being  different  from  the  typ- 
ical bayaderes,  who  are  thus  described  by  one  of  tfte  characters  : 

"  For  money  they  laugh  or  weep  ;  they  win  a  man's  con- 
fidence but  do  not  give  him  theirs.  Therefore  a  respectable 
man  ought  to  keep  bayaderes  like  flowers  of  a  cemetery,  three 
steps  away  from  him.  It  is  also  said  :  changeable  like  waves 
of  the  sea,  like  clouds  in  a  sunset,  glowing  only  a  moment — 
so  are  women.  As  soon  as  they  have  plundered  a  man  they 
throw  him  away  like  a  dye-rag  that  has  been  squeezed  dry. 
This  saying,  too,  is  pertinent:  just  as  no  lotos  grows  on  a 
mountain  top,  no  mule  draws  a  horse's  load,  no  scattered 
barley  grows  up  as  rice  ;  so  no  wanton  ever  becomes  a  re- 
spectable woman." 


AN    INDIAN   ASPASIA  667 

Vasantasena,  however,  does  become  a  respectable  woman. 
In  the  last  scene  the  king  confers  on  her  a  veil,  whereby  the 
stain  on  her  birth  and  life  is  wiped  away  and  she  becomes 
Tscharudatta's  legitimate  second  wife. 

But  how  about  the  first  wife  ?  Her  actions  show  how 
widely  in  India  conjugal  love  may  differ  from  what  we  know 
as  such,  by  the  absence  of  monopoly  and  jealousy.  When  she 
first  hears  of  the  theft  of  Vasantasena's  jewels  in  her  hus- 
band's house  she  is  greatly  distressed  at  the  impending  loss 
of  his  good  name,  but  is  not  in  the  least  disturbed  by  the  dis- 
covery that  she  has  a  rival.  On  the  contrary,  she  takes  a 
string  of  pearls  that  remains  from  her  dowry,  and  sends  it  to 
her  husband  to  be  given  to  Vasantasena  as  an  equivalent  for 
her  lost  jewels.  Vasantasena,  on  her  part,  is  equally  free 
from  jealousy.  Without  knowing  whence  they  came,  she  after- 
ward sends  the  pearls  to  her  lover's  wife  with  these  words 
addressed  to  her  servants  :  "  Take  these  pearls  and  give  them 
to  my  sister,  Tscharudatta's  wife,  the  honorable  woman,  and 
say  to  her  :  '  Conquered  by  Tscharudatta's  excellence,  I  have 
become  also  your  slave.  Therefore  use  this  string  of  pearls 
as  a  necklace. ' '  The  wife  returned  the  pearls  with  the 
message  :  "  My  master  and  husband  has  made  you  a  present 
of  these  pearls.  It  would  therefore  be  improper  for  me  to 
accept  them :  my  master  and  husband  is  my  special  jewel. 
This  I  beg  you  to  consider."  And,  in  the  final  scenes,  the 
wife  shows  her  great  love  for  her  husband  by  hastening  to  get 
ready  for  the  funeral  pyre  to  be  burnt  alive  with  his  corpse. 
And  when,  after  expressing  her  joy  at  his  rescue  and  kissing 
him,  she  turns  and  sees  Vasantasena,  she  exclaims  ;  "  0  this 
happiness  !  How  do  you  do,  my  sister  ? "  Vasantasena  re- 
plies :  "  Now  I  am  happy/'  and  the  two  embrace  ! 

The  translator  of  Qudraka's  play  notes  in  the  preface  that 
there  is  a  curious  lack  of  ardor  in  the  expression  of  Tscharu- 
datta's  love  for  Vasantasena,  and  he  naively— though  quite  in 
the  Hindoo  spirit — explains  this  as  showing  that  this  superior 
person  (who  is  a  model  of  altruistic  self-sacrifice  in  every  re- 
spect), "  remains  untouched  by  coarse  outbursts  of  sensual 
passion."  The  only  time  he  warms  up  is  when  he  hears  that 


668  INDIA— TEMPLE   GIRLS 

the  bayadere  prefers  him  to  her  wealthy  persecutor  ;  he  then 
exclaims,  "  Oh,  how  this  girl  deserves  to  be  worshipped  like  a 
goddess/'  Vasantasena  is  much  the- more  ardent  of  the  two. 
It  is  she  who  goes  forth  to  seek  him,  repeatedly,  dressed  in 
purple  and  pearls,  as  custom  prescribes  to  a  girl  who  goes  to 
meet  her  lover.  It  is  she  who  exclaims  :  "  The  clouds  may 
rain,  thunder,  or  send  forth  lightning  :  women  who  go  to 
meet  their  lovers  heed  neither  heat  nor  cold."  Arid  again  : 
"  may  the  clouds  tower  on  high,  may  night  come  on,  may 
the  rain  fall  in  torrents,  I  heed  them  not.  Alas,  my  heart 
looks  only  toward  the  lover."  It  is  she  who  is  so  absent- 
minded,  thinking  of  him,  that  her  maid  suspects  her  passion  ; 
she  who,  when  a  royal  suitor  is  suggested  to  her,  exclaims, 
"  Tis  love  I  crave  to  bestow,  not  homage." 

SYMPTOMS   OF   FEMININE   LOVE 

This  portrayal  of  the  girl  as  the  chief  lover  is  quite  the  cus- 
tom in  Hindoo  literature,  and  doubtless  mirrors  life  as  it  was 
and  is.  Like  a  dog  that  fawns  on  an  indifferent  or  cruel  mas- 
ter, these  women  of  India  were  sometimes  attached  to  their  self- 
ish lovers  and  husbands.  They  had  been  trained  from  their 
childhood  to  be  sympathetic,  altruistic,  devoted,  self-sacrific- 
ing, and  were  thus  much  better  prepared  than  the  men  for 
the  germs  of  amorous  sentiment,  which  can  grow  only  in  such 
a  soil  of  self-denial.  Hence  it  is  that  Hindoo  love-poems  are 
usually  of  the  feminine  gender.  This  is  notably  the  case  with 
the  Saptacatakam  of  Hala,  an  anthology  of  seven  hundred 
Prakrit  verses  made  from  a  countless  number  of  love-poems 
that  are  intended  to  be  sung — "  songs,"  says  Albrecht  Weber, 
"  such  as  the  girls  of  India,  especially  perhaps  the  bayaderes  or 
temple  girls  may  have  been  in  the  habit  of  singing." l  Some 

1  Hala's  date  is  somewhat  uncertain,  but  he  flourished  between  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries  A.  D.  Professor  Weber's  translation  of  his  seven  hundred 
poems,  with  the  professor's  comments,  takes  up  no  fewer  than  1,023  pages  of  the 
Abhandlunfjen  fur  die  Kunde  des  Morgenlandes,  Vols.  V.  and  VII.  I  have 
selected  all  those  which  throw  light  on  the  Hindoo  conception  of  love,  and  trans- 
lated them  carefully  from  Weber's  version.  Hala's  anthology  served  as  proto- 
type, about  the  twelfth  century,  to  a  similar  collection  of  arya  verses,  the  erotic 
Saptacatiof  Govardhana,  also  seven  hundred  in  number,  but  written  in  Sanskrit. 
Of  these  I  have  not  been  able  to  find  a  version  in  a  language  that  I  can  read,  but 
the  other  collection  is  copious  aud  varied  enough  to  cover  all  the  phases  of  Hm- 


SYMPTOMS   OF   FEMININE   LOVE  669 

of  these  indicate  a  strong  individual  preference  and  monopoly 
of  attachment  : 

No.  40  :  "  Her  heart  is  dear  to  her  as  being  your  abode,  her 
eyes  because  she  saw  you  with  them,  her  body  because  it  has 
become  thin  owing  to  your  absence." 

No.  43  :  "  The  burning  (grief)  of  separation  is  (said  to  be) 
made  more  endurable  by  hope.  But,  mother,  if  my  beloved 
is  away  from  me  even  in  the  same  village,  it  is  worse  than 
death  to  me." 

No.  57  :  "  Heedless  of  the  other  youths,  she  roams  about, 
transgressing  the  rules  of  propriety,  casting  her  glances  in 
(all)  directions  of  the  world  for  your  sake,  0  child." 

No.  92  :  "  That  momentary  glimpse  of  him  whom,  oh,  my 
aunt,  I  constantly  long  to  see,  has  (touched)  quenched  my 
thirst  (as  little)  as  a  drink  taken  in  a  dream." 

No.  185  :  "  She  has  not  sent  me.  You  have  no  relations 
with  her.  What  concern  of  ours  is  it  therefore  ?  Well,  she 
dies  in  her  separation  from  you." 

No.  202  :  "  No  matter  how  often  I  repeat  to  my  mistress  the 
message  you  confided  to  me,  she  replies  '  I  did  not  hear'  (what 
you  said),  and  thus  makes  me  repeat  it  a  hundred  times." 

No.  203  :  "  As  she  looked  at*  you,  filled  with  the  might  of 
her  self-betraying  love,  so  she  then,  in  order  to  conceal  it, 
looked  also  at  the  other  persons." 

No.  234  :  "  Although  all  (my)  possessions  were  consumed 
in  the  village  fire,  yet  is  (my)  heart  rejoiced,  (when  it  was  put 
out)  he  took  the  bucket  as  it  passed  from  hand  to  hand 
(from  my  hand)." 

No.  299  :  "  She  stares,  without  having  an  object,  gives  vent 
to  long  sighs,  laughs  into  vacant  space,  mutters  unintelligi- 
ble words — surely  she  must  bear  something  in  her  heart." 

No.  302  :  "  '  Do  give  her  to  the  one  she  carries  in  her  heart. 
Do  you  not  see,  aunt,  that  she  is  pining  away  ?'  'No  one 
rests  in  my  heart7  [literally  ;  whence  could  come  in  my  heart 
resting  ?] — thus  speaking,  the  girl  fell  into  a  swoon." 

No.  345  .  "  If  it  is  not  your  beloved,  my  friend,  how  is  it 
that  at  the  mention  of  his  name  your  face  glows  like  a  lotos 
bud  opened  by  the  sun's  rays  ?  " 

doo  love.  The  verses  were  intended,  as  already  indicated,  to  be  sung,  for  the 
Hindoos,  too,  knew  the  power  of  music  as  a  pastime  and  a  feedei  of  the  emo- 
tions. "If  music  be  the  food  of  love,  play  on,'  says  the  English  Shakespere, 
and  the  "  Hindoo  Shakespere"  wrote  more  than  a  thousand  years  before  him  : 
"  Oh,  how  beautifully  our  master  Rebhila  has  sung  !  Yes,  indeed,  the  zither  is 
a  pearl,  only  it  does  not  come  from  the  depths  of  the  sea.  How  its  tones  accord 
with  the  heart  that  longs  for  love,  how  it  helps  to  while  away  time  at  a  rendez- 
vous, how  it  assuages  the  grief  of  separation,  and  augments  the  delights  of  the 
lovers  !  '  (  Vasantaseita,  Act  III.,  2.) 


670  INDIA— TEMPLE   GIRLS 

No.  368  :  "  Like  illness  without  a  doctor — like  living  with 
relatives  if  one  is  poor,  like  the  sight  of  an  enemy's  prosper- 
ity— so  difficult  is  it  to  endure  separation  from  you/' 

No.  378  :  '*  Whatever  you  do,  whatever  you  say,  and  wher- 
ever you  turn  your  eyes,  the  day  is  not  long  enough  for  her 
efforts  to  imitate  you. 

No.  440  :  "  .  .  .  She,  whose  every  limb  was  hathed  in 
perspiration,  at  the  mere  mention  of  his  name/' 

No.  453  :  "  My  friend  !  tell  me  honestly,  I  ask  you  :  do 
the  bracelets  of  all  women  become  larger  when  the  lover  is  far 
away  ?  " 

No.  531  :  "  In  whichever  direction  I  look  I  see  you  before 
me,  as  if  painted  there.  The  whole  firmament  brings  before 
me  as  it  were  a  series  of  pictures  of  you." 

No.  650  :  "  From  him  proceed  all  discourses,  all  are  about 
him,  end  with  him.  Is  there  then,  my  aunt,  but  one  young 
man  in  all  this  village  ?  " 

While  these  poems  may  have  been  sung  mostly  by  baya- 
deres, there  are  others  which  obviously  give  expression  to  the 
legitimate  feelings  of  married  women.  This  is  especially  true 
of  the  large  number  which  voice  the  sorrows  of  women  at  the 
absence  of  their  husbands  after  the  rains  have  set  in.  The 
rainy  season  is  in  India  looked  on  as  the  season  of  love,  and 
separation  from  the  lover  at  this  time  is  particularly  be- 
wailed, all  the  more  as  the  rains  soon  make  the  roads  im- 
passable. 

No.  29  :  "  To-day,  when,  alone,  I  recalled  the  joys  we  had 
formerly  shared,  the  thunder  of  the  new  clouds  sounded  to 
me  like  the  death-drum  (that  accompanies  culprits  to  the 
place  of  execution)." 

No.  47  :  "  The  young  wife  of  the  man  who  has  got  ready  for 
his  journey  roams,  after  his  departure,  from  house  to  house, 
trying  to  get  the  secret  for  preserving  life  from  wives  who 
have  learned  how  to  endure  separation  from  their  beloved/' 

No.  227  :  "  In  putting  down  the  lamp  the  wife  of  the  wan- 
derer turns  her  face  aside,  fearing  that  the  stream  of  tears 
that  falls  at  the  thought  of  the  beloved  might  drop  on  it/' 

No.  501  :  "  When  the  voyager,  on  taking  leave,  saw  his 
wife  turn  pale,  he  was  overcome  by  grief  and  unable  to  go." 

No.  623  :  "  The  wanderer's  wife  does  indeed  protect  her 
little  son  by  interposing  her  head  to  catch  the  rain  water 
dripping  from  the  eaves,  but  fails  to  notice  (in  her  grief  over 
her  absent  one)  that  he  is  wetted  by  her  tears." 


SYMPTOMS   OF   FEMININE   LOVE  671 

These  twenty-one  poems  are  the  best  samples  of  everything 
contained  in  Hala's  anthology  illustrating  the  serious  side  of 
love  among  the  bayaderes  and  married  women  of  India.  Care- 
ful perusal  of  them  must  convince  the  reader  that  there  is 
nothing  in  them  revealing  the  altruistic  phases  of  love.  There 
is  much  ardent  longing  for  the  selfish  gratification  which  the 
presence  of  a  lover  would  give  ;  deep  grief  at  his  absence ; 
indications  that  a  certain  man  could  afford  her  much  more 
pleasure  by  his  presence  than  others — and  that  is  all.  When 
a  girl  wails  that  she  is  dying  because  her  lover  is  absent  she 
is  really  thinking  of  her  own  pleasure  rather  than  his.  None 
of  these  poems  expresses  the  sentiment,  ef  Oh,  that  I  could  do 
something  to  make  him  happy  ! "  These  women  are  indeed 
taught  and  forced  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  their  husbands, 
but  when  it  comes  to  spontaneous  utterances,  like  these  songs, 
we  look  in  vain  for  evidence  of  pure,  devoted,  high-minded, 
romantic  love.  The  more  frivolous  side  of  Oriental  love  is, 
on  the  other  hand,  abundantly  illustrated  in  Hala's  poems,  as 
the  following  samples  show  : 

No.  40  :  "0  you  pitiless  man  !  You  who  are  afraid  of  your 
wife  and  difficult  to  catch  sight  of  !  You  who  resemble  (in 
bitterness)  a  nimba  worm — and  yet  who  are  the  delight  of 
the  village  women  !  For  does  not  the  (whole)  village  grow 
thin  (longing)  for  you  ?  " 

No.  44  :  "The  sweetheart  will  not  fail  to  come  back  into 
his  heart  even  though  he  caress  another  girl,  v/hether  he  see 
in  her  the  same  charms  or  not." 

No.  83  :  "  This  young  farmer,  0  beautiful  girl,  though  he 
already  has  a  beautiful  wife,  has  nevertheless  become  so 
reduced  that  his  own  jealous  wife  has  consented  to  deliver 
this  message  to  you." 

The  last  two  poems  hint  at  the  ease  with  which  feminine 
jealousy  is  suppressed  in  India,  of  which  we  have  had  some 
instances  before  and  shall  have  others  presently.  Coyness 
seems  to  be  not  much  more  developed,  at  least  among  those 
who  need  it  most : 

No.  465  :  "  By  being  kind  to  him  again  at  first  sight  you 
deprived  yourself,  you  foolish  girl,  of  many  pleasures — his 
prostration  at  your  feet  and  his  eager  robbing  of  a  kiss." 


672  INDIA— TEMPLE    GIRLS 

No.  45  :  "  Since  youth  (rolls  on)  like  the  rapids  of  a  river, 
the  days  speed  away  and  the  nights  cannot  be  checked — my 
daughter!  what  means  this  accursed,  proud  reserve  ?" 

No.  139:  "On  the  pretext  that  the  descent  to  the  Goda 
(river)  is  difficult,  she  threw  herself  in  his  arms.  And  he 
clasped  her  tightly  without  thereby  incurring  any  reproach/' 
(See  also  No.  108.) 

No.  121  :  "  Though  disconsolate  at  the  death  of  her  rela- 
tives, the  captive  girl  looked  lovingly  upon  the  young  kid- 
napper, because  he  appeared  to  her  to  be  a  perfect  (hero). 
Who  can  remain  sulky  in  the  face  of  virtues  ?" 

Such  love  as  these  women  felt  is  fickle  and  transient : 

No.  240  :  "  Through  being  out  of  sight,  my  child,  in  course 
of  time  the  love  dwindles  away  even  of  those  who  were  firmly 
joined  in  tender  union,  as  water  runs  from  the  hollow  of  the 
hand." 

No.  106  :  "0  heart  that,  like  a  long  piece  of  wood  which 
is  being  carried  down  the  rapids  of  a  small  stream  is  caught 
at  every  place,  your  fate  is  nevertheless  to  be  burnt  by  some 
one  ! " 

No.  80  :  "  By  being  out  of  sight  love  goes,  away  ;  by  seeing 
too  often  it  goes  away  ;  also  by  the  gossip  of  malicious  per- 
sons it  goes  away  ;  yes,  it  also  goes  away  by  itself/' 

"  If  the  bee,  eager  to  sip,  always  seeks  the  juices  of  new 
growths,  this  is  the  fault  of  the  sapless  flowers,  not  of  the 
bee." 

Where  love  is  merely  sensual  and  shallow  lovers'  quarrels 
do  not  fan  the  flame,  but  put  it  out : 

"  Love  which,  once  dissolved,  is  united  again,  after  un- 
pleasant things  have  been  revealed,  tastes  flat,  like  water  that 
has  been  boiled." 

The  commercial  element  is  conspicuous  in  this  kind  of 
love  ;  it  cannot  persist  without  a  succession  of  presents  : 

No.  67:  "When  the  festival  is  over  nothing  gives  pleas- 
ure. So  also  with  the  full  moon  late  in  the  morning — and 
of  love,  which  at  last  becomes  insipid — and  with  gratifica- 
tion, that  does  not  manifest  itself  in  the  form  of  presents." 

The  illicit,  impure  aspect  of  Oriental  love  is  hinted  at  in 
many  of  the  poems  collected  by  Hala.  There  are  frequent 
allusions  to  rendezvous  in  temples,  which  are  so  quiet  that 


SYMPTOMS    OF    MASCULINE    LOVE  673 

the  pigeons  are  scared  by  the  footsteps  of  the  lovers  ;  or  in 
the  high  grain  of  the  harvest  fields  ;  or  on  the  river  banks,  so 
deserted  that  the  monkeys  there  fill  their  paunches  with  mus- 
tard leaves  undisturbed. 

No.  190  •  "  When  he  comes  what  shall  I  do  ?  What  shall 
I  say  and  what  will  come  of  this  ?  Her  heart  beats  as,  with 
these  thoughts,  the  girl  goes  out  on  her  first  rendezvous." 
(Of.  also  Nos.  223  and  491.) 

No.  628  :  "  O  summer  time  !  you  who  give  good  opportu- 
nities for  rendezvous  by  drying  the  small  ditches  and  cover- 
ing the  trees  with  a  dense  abundance  of  leaves  !  you  test-plate 
of  the  gold  of  love-happiness,  you  must  not  fade  away  yet 
for  a  long  time." 

No.  553  :  "Aunt,  why  don't  you  remove  the  parrot  from 
this  bed-chamber  ?  He  betrays  all  the  caressing  words  to 
others." 

Hindoo  poets  have  the  faculty,  which  they  share  with  the 
Japanese,  of  bringing  a  whole  scene  or  episode  vividly  before 
the  eyes  with  a  sentence  or  two,  as  all  the  foregoing  selections 
show.  Sometimes  a  whole  story  is  thus  condensed,  as  in  the 
following : 

"  '  Master  !  He  came  to  implore  our  protection.  Save 
him!'  thus  speaking,  she  very  slyly  hastened  to  turn  over 
her  paramour  to  her  suddenly  entering  husband."  (See  also 
No.  305  and  Hitopadesa,  p.  88.) 


SYMPTOMS   OF   MASCULINE    LOVE 

Since  Hindoo  women,  in  spite  of  their  altruistic  training, 
are  prevented  by  their  lack  of  culture  or  virtue  (the  domestic 
virtuous  women  have  no  culture  and  the  cultured  bayaderes 
have  no  virtue)  from  rising  to  the  heights  of  sentimental 
love,  it  would  be  hopeless  to  expect  the  amazingly  selfish, 
unsympathetic  and  cruel  men  to  do  so,  despite  their  intellec- 
tual culture.  Among  all  the  seven  hundred  poems  culled  by 
Hiila  there  are  only  two  or  three  which  even  hint  at  the 
higher  phases  of  love  in  masculine  bosoms.  Inasmuch  as 
No.  383  tells  us  that  even  "the  male  elephant,  though  tor- 
mented by  great  hunger,  thinking  of  his  beloved  wife,  allows 


674  INDIA— TEMPLE   GIRLS 

the  juicy  lotos-stalk  to  wither  in  his  trunk/'  one  could  hard- 
ly expect  of  man  less  than  the  sentiment  expressed  in  No. 
576  :  "  He  who  has  a  faithful  love  considers  himself  contented 
even  in  misfortune,  whereas  without  his  love  he  is  unhappy 
though  he  possess  the  earth."  Another  poem  indicating 
that  Hindoo  men  may  share  with  women  a  strong  feeling  of 
amorous  monopolism  is  No.  498  :  "He  regards  only  her 
countenance,  and  she,  too,  is  quite  intoxicated  at  sight  of 
him.  Both  of  them,  satisfied  with  one  another,  act  as  if  in 
the  whole  world  there  were  no  other  women  or  men."  But 
as  a  rule  the  men  are  depicted  as  being  fickle,  even  more  so 
than  the  women.  A  frequent  complaint  of  the  girls  is  that 
the  men  forget  whom  they  happen  to  be  caressing  and  call 
them  by  another  girl's  name.  More  frequent  still  are  the 
complaints  of  neglect  or  desertion.  One  -of  these,  No.  46, 
suggests  the  praises  of  night  sung  in  the  mediaeval  legend  of 
Tristan  and  Isolde  :  "  To-morrow  morning,  my  beloved,  the 
hard-hearted  goes  away — so  people  say.  0  sacred  night !  do 
lengthen  so  that  there  will  be  no  morning  for  him." 

At  first  sight  the  most  surprising  and  important  of  Hala's 
seven  hundred  poems  seems  to  be  No.  567  :  "  Only  over  me, 
the  iron-hearted,  thunder,  0  cloud,  and  with  all  your  might ; 
be  sure  that  you  do  not  kill  my  poor  one  with  the  hanging 
locks."  Here,  for  once,  we  have  the  idea  of  self-sacrifice — 
only  the  idea,  it  is  true,  and  not  the  act ;  but  it  indicates  a 
very  exceptional  and  exalted  state  for  a  Hindoo  even  to  think 
of  such  a  thing.  The  self-reproach  of  "  iron-hearted  "  tells 
us,  however,  that  the  man  has  been  behaving  selfishly  and 
cruelly  toward  his  sweetheart  or  wife,  and  is  feeling  sorry  for 
a  moment.  In  such  moments  a  Hindoo  not  infrequently  be- 
comes human,  especially  if  he  expects  new  favors  of  the  mal- 
treated woman,  which  she  is  only  too  willing  to  grant : 

No.  85  :  "  While  with  the  breath  of  his  mouth  he  cooled 
one  of  my  hands,  swollen  from  the  effect  of  his  blow,  I  put 
the  other  one  laughingly  around  his  neck." 

No.  191  :  "  By  untangling  the  hair  of  her  prostrate  lover 
from  the  notches  of  her  spangles  in  which  it  had  been  caught, 
she  shows  him  that  her  heart  has  ceased  to  be  sulky." 


SYMPTOMS   OF   MASCULINE  LOVE  675 

References  to  such  prostrations  to  secure  forgiveness  for 
inconstancy  or  cruelty  are  frequent  in  Hindoo  poems  and 
dramas,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  that  they  are  a  very  differ- 
ent thing  from  the  disinterested  prostrations  and  homage  of 
modern  gallantry.  True  gallantry  being  one  of  the  altruistic 
ingredients  of  love,  it  would  be  useless  to  seek  for  it  among 
the  Hindoos.  Not  so  with  hyperbole,  which  being  simply  a 
magnifying  of  one's  own  sensations  and  an  expression  of  ex- 
travagant feeling  of  any  kind,  forms,  as  we  know,  a  phase  of 
sensual  as  well  as  of  sentimental  love.  The  eager  desire  for 
a  girl's  favor  makes  her  breath  and  all  her  attributes  seem  deli- 
cious not  only  to  man  but  to  inanimate  things.  The  following, 
with  the  finishing  touches  applied  by  the  German  translator, 
approaches  modern  poetic  sentiment  more  closely  than  any 
other  of  Hala's  songs  : 

No.  13  :  "0  you  who  are  skilled  in  cooking  !  Do  not  be 
angry  (that  the  fire  fails  to  burn).  The  fire  does  not  burn, 
smokes  only,  in  order  to  dririk  in  (long)  the  breath  of  (your) 
mouth,  perfumed  like  red  patela  blossoms." 

In  the  use  of  hyperbole  it  is  very  difficult  to  avoid  the 
step  from  the  sublime  to  the  ridiculous.  The  author  of  No. 
153  had  a  happy  thought  when  he  sang  fliat  his  beloved  was 
so  perfect  a  beauty  that  no  one  had  ever  been  able  to  see  her 
whole  body  because  the  eye  refused  to  leave  whatever  part  it 
first  alighted  on.  This  pretty  notion  is  turned*  into  uncon- 
scious burlesque  by  the  author  of  No.  274,  who  complains, 
"How  can  I  describe  her  from  whose  limbs  the  eyes  that  see 
them  cannot  tear  themselves  away,  like  a  weak  cow  from  the 
mud  she  is  sticking  in."  Hardly  less  grotesque  to  our  AVestern 
taste  is  the  favorite  boast  (No.  211  et  passim)  that  the  moon 
is  making  vain  efforts  to  shine  as  brightly  as  the  beloved's 
face.  It  is  easier  for  us  to  sympathize  with  the  Hindoo  poets 
when  they  express  their  raptures  over  the  eyes  or  locks  of 
their  beloved  : 

No.  470  :  "  Other  beauties  too  have  in  their  faces  beautiful 
wide  black  eyes,  with  long  lashes,  but  they  cannot  cast  such 
glances  as  you  do." 


676  INDIA— TEMPLE   GIRLS 

No.  77  :  "I  think  of  her  countenance  with  her  locks  float- 
ing loosely  about  it  as  she  shook  her  head  when  I  seized  her 
lip — like  unto  a  lotos  flower  surrounded  by  a  swarm  of  (black) 
bees  attracted  by  its  fragrance." 

Yet  even  these  two  references  to  personal  beauty  are  not 
purely  esthetic,  and  in  all  the  others  the  sensual  aspect  is 
more  emphasized  : 

No.  550  :  "  The  brown  girl's  hair,  which  had  succeeded  in 
touching  her  hips,  weeps  drops  of  water,  as  it  were,  now  thai- 
she  comes  out  of  the  bath,  as  if  from  fear  of  now  being  tied 
up  again." 

No.  128  :  "  As  by  a  miracle,  as  by  a  treasure,  as  in  heaven, 
as  a  kingdom,  as  a  drink  of  ambrosia,  was  I  affected  when  I 
(first)  saw  her  without  any  clothing." 

No.  473  :  "For  the  sake  of  the  dark-eyed  girls  whose  hips 
and  thighs  are  visible  through  their  wet  dresses  when  they 
bathe  in  the  afternoon,  does  Kama  [the  god  of  love]  wield 
his  bow." 

Again  and  again  the  poets  express  their  raptures  over  exag- 
gerated busts  and  hips,  often  in  disgustingly  coarse  com- 
parisons— lines  which  cannot  be  quoted  here.1 


•LYRICS   AND    DRAMAS 

Iii  his  History  of  Indian  Literature  (209),  Weber  says 
that  "  the  erotic  lyric  commences  for  us  with  certain  of  the 
poems  attributed  to  Kalidasa."  tf  The  later  Kavyas  are  to  be 
ranked  with  the  erotic  poems  rather  than  with  the  epic.  In 
general  this  love-poetry  is  of  the  most  unbridled  and  ex- 
travagantly sensual  description  ;  yet  examples  of  deep  and 
truly  romantic  tenderness  are  not  wanting."  Inasmuch  as  he 
attributes  the  same  qualities  to  some  of  the  Hala  poems  in 

1  The  disadvantage  of  arguing  against  the  believers  in  primitive,  Oriental,  and 
ancient,  amorous  sentiment  is  that  some  of  the  strongest  evidence  against  them 
cannot  be  cited  in  a  book  intended  for  general  reading  Professor  Weber  de- 
clares in  his  introduction  to  Hala's  anthology  that  these  poems  take  us  through 
all  phases  of  sentimental  love  (lunigen  Liebedebenx)  to  the  most  licentious  situ- 
ations. He  is  mistaken,  as  I  have  shown,  in  regard  to  the  sentiment,  but  there 
can  be  no  doubt  about  the  licentiousness.  Numbers  5,  23,  62,  63,  65,  71,  72, 
107,  115,  139,  161,  200,  223,  237,  241,  24:3,  300,  305,  336,  338,  356,  364,  369,  455, 
483,  491,  62S,  637,  depict  or  suggest  improper  scenas,  while  fil,  213,  215,  242, 
278,  337,  476,  (590  are  frankly  obscene.  Lower  and  higher  things  are  mixed  in 
these  poems  with  a  naivete  that  shows  the  absence  of  any  idea  of  refinement. 


THE   STORY   OF   SAKUNTALA  677 

which  we  have  been  unable  to  find  them,  it  is  obvious  that 
his  conception  of  "deep  and  truly  romantic  tenderness"  is 
dillVrent  from  ours,  and  it  is  useless  to  quarrel  about  words. 
Ilfihi's  collection,  being  an  anthology  of  the  best  love-songs  of 
many  poets,  is  much  more  representative  and  valuable  than  if 
the  verses  were  all  by  the  same  poet.  If  Hindoo  bards  and 
bayaderes  had  a  capacity  for  true  altruistic  love-sentiment, 
these  seven  hundred  songs  could  hardly  have  failed  to  reveal 
it.  But  to  make  doubly  sure  that  we  are  not  misrepresenting 
a  phase  of  the  history  of  civilization,  let  us  examine  the  Hin- 
doo dramas  most  noted  as  love-stories,  especially  those  of 
Kalidasa,  whose  Sakuntala  in  particular  was  triumphantly 
held  up  by  some  of  my  critics  as  a  refutation  of  my  theory 
that  none  of  the  ancient  civilized  nations  knew  romantic  love. 
I  shall  first  briefly  summarize  the  love-stories  told  in  these 
dramas,  and  then  point  out  what  they  reveal  in  regard  to  the 
Hindoo  conception  of  love  as  based,  presumably,  on  their  ex- 
periences. 

I.      THE   STORY   OF   SAKUNTALA 

Once  upon  a  time  there  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Gautami 
River  a  hermit  named  Kaucjka.  He  was  of  royal  blood  and 
had  made  so  much  progress  with  his  saintly  exercises  of  pen- 
itence that  he  was  on  the  point  of  being  able  to  defy  the  laws 
of  Nature,  and  the  gods  themselves  began  to  fear  his  power. 
To  deprive  him  of  it  they  sent  down  a  beautiful  apsara  (ce- 
lestial bayadere)  to  tempt  him.  He  could  not  resist  her 
charms,  and  broke  his  vows.  A  daughter  was  born  who  re- 
ceived the  name  of  Sakuntala,  and  was  given  in  charge  of 
another  saint,  named  Kanva,  who,  brought  her  up  lovingly  as 
if  she  had  been  his  own  daughter.  She  has  grown  up  to  be  a 
maiden  of  more  than  human  beauty,  when  one  day  she  is  seen 
by  the  king,  who,  while  hunting,  has  strayed  within  the  sa- 
cred precincts  while  the  saint  is  away  on  a  holy  errand.  He 
is  at  once  fascinated  by  her  beauty— a  beauty,  as  he  says  to 
himself,  such  as  is  seldom  found  in  royal  chambers — a  wild  vine 
more  lovely  than  any  garden-plant — and  she,  too,  confesses 
to  her  companions  that  since  she  has  seen  him  she  is  over- 
come by  a  feeling  which  seems  out  of  place  in  this  abode  of 
penitence. 

The  king  cannot  bear  the  idea  of  returning  to  his  palace, 


678  INDIA— DRAMAS 

but  encamps  near  the  grove  of  the  penitents.  He  fears  that 
he  may  not  be  able  to  win  the  girl's  love,  and  she  is  tortured 
by  the  same  doubt  regarding  him.  "  Did  Brahma  first  paint 
her  and  then  infuse  life  into  her,  or  did  he  in  his  spirit  fash- 
ion her  out  of  a  number  of  spirits  ?  "  he  exclaims.  He  wonders 
what  excuse  he  can  have  for  lingering  in  the  grove.  His 
companion  suggests  gathering  the  tithe,  but  the  king  retorts  : 
"  What  I  get  for  protecting  her  is  to  be  esteemed  higher  than 
piles  of  jewels/'  He  now  feels  an  aversion  to  hunting.  "  I 
would  not  be  able  to  shoot  this  arrow  at  the  gazelles  who  have 
lived  with  her,  and  who  taught  the  beloved  to  gaze  so  inno- 
cently." He  grows  thin  from  loss  of  sleep.  Unable  to  keep 
his  feelings  locked  up  in  his  bosom,  he  reveals  them  to  his 
companion,  the  jester,  but  afterward,  fearing  he  might  tell 
his  wives  about  this  love-affair,  he  says  to  him  :  "Of  course 
there  is  no  truth  in  the  notion  that  I  coveted  this  girl  Sak- 
untala.  Just  think  !  how  could  we  suit  one  another,  a  girl 
who  knows  nothing  of  love  and  has  grown  up  perfectly  wild 
with  the  young  gazelles  ?  No,  my  friend,  you  must  not  take 
a  joke  seriously."  But  all  the  time  he  grows  thinner  from 
longing — so  thin  that  his  bracelet,  whose  jewels  have  lost  all 
their  lustre  from  his  tears,  falls  constantly  from  his  arm  and 
has  to  be  replaced. 

In  the  meantime  Saktintala,  without  lacking  the  reserve 
and  timidity  proper  to  the  girls  of  penitents,  has  done  several 
things  that  encouraged  the  king  to  hope.  While  she  avoided 
looking  straight  at  him  (as  etiquette  prescribed),  there  was  a 
loving  expression  on  her  face,  and  once,  when  about  to  go 
away  with  her  companions,  she  pretended  that  her  foot  had 
been  cut  by  a  blade  of  kusagrass — but  it  was  merely  an  ex- 
cuse for  turning  her  face.  Thus,  while  her  love  is  not  frankly 
discovered,  it  is  not  covered  either.  She  doubts  whether  the 
king  loves  her,  and  her  agony  throws  her  into  a  feverish 
state  which  her  companions  try  in  vain  to  allay  by  fanning 
her  with  lotos  leaves.  The -king  is  convinced  that  the  sun's 
heat  alone  could  not  have  affected  her  thus.  He  sees  that  she 
has  grown  emaciated  and  seems  ill.  "  Her  cheeks,"  he  says, 
"  have  grown  thin,  her  bosom  has  lost  its  firm  tension,  her 
body  has  grown  attenuated,  her  shoulders  stoop,  and  pale  is 
her  face.  Tortured  by  love,  the  girl  presents  an  aspect  as 
pitiable  as  it  is  lovable  ;  she  resembles  the  vine  Madhavi  when 
it  is  blighted  by  the  hot  breath  of  a  leaf-desiccating  wind." 
He  is  watching  her,  unseen  himself,  as  she  reclines  in  an 
arbor  with  her  friends,  who  are  fanning  her.  He  hears  her 
say  :  "  Since  the  hour  when  he  came  before  my  eyes  .  .  . 
the  royal  sage,  ah,  since  that  hour  I  have  become  as  you  see 


THE   STORY   OF   SAKUNTALA  679 

me — from  longing  for  him  ; "  and  he  wonders,  "  how  could  she 
fear  to  have  any  difficulty  in  winning  her  lover  ?  "  "  The  little 
hairs  on  her  cheek  reveal  her  passion  by  becoming  erect,"  he 
adds  as  he  sees  her  writing  something  with  her  nails  on  a  lotos 
leaf.  She  reads  to  her  companions  what  she  has  written  : 
"  your  heart  I  know  not  ;  me  love  burns  day  and  night,  you 
cruel  one,  because  I  think  of  you  alone/' 1  Encouraged  by 
this  confession,  the  king  steps  from  his  place  of  concealment 
and  exclaims  :  "  Slender  girl,  the  glowing  heat  of  love  only 
burns  you,  but  me  it  consumes,  and  incessant  is  the  great  tort- 
ure." Sakuntala  tries  to  rise,  but  is  too  weak,  and  the  king 
bids  her  dispense  with  ceremony.  While  he  expresses  his  hap- 
piness at  having  found  his  love  reciprocated,  one  of  the  com- 
panions mutters  something  about  "  Kings  having  many  loves/' 
and  Sakuntala  herself  exclaims  :  "  Why  do  you  detain  the  royal 
sage  ?  He  is  quite  unhappy  because  he  is  separated  from  his 
wives  at  court."  But  the  king  protests  that  though  he  has 
many  women  at  court,  his  heart  belongs  to  no  other  but  her. 
Left  alone  with  Sakuntala,  he  exclaims:  "  Be  not  alarmed  ! 
For  am  not  I,  who  brings  you  adoring  homage,  at  your  side  ? 
Shall  I  fan  you  with  the  cooling  petals  of  these  water-lilies  ? 
Or  shall  I  place  your  lotos  feet  on  my  lap  and  fondle  them  to 
my  heart's  content,  you  round-hipped  maiden  ?"  "God  for- 
bid that  I  should  be  so  indiscreet  with  a  man  that  commands 
respect,"  replies  Sakuntala.  She  tries  to  escape,  and  when 
the  king  holds  her,  she  says  :  "  Son  of  Puru  !  Observe  the 
laws  of  propriety  and  custom  !  I  am,  indeed,  inflamed  by  love, 
but  I  cannot  dispose  of  myself."  The  king  urges  her  not  to 
fear  her  foster  father.  Many  girls,  he  says,  have  freely  given 
themselves  to  kings  without  incurring  parental  disapproval  ; 
and  he  tries  to  kiss  her.  A  voice  warns  them  that  night  ap- 
proaches, and,  hearing  her  friends  returning,  Sakuntala  urges 
the  king  to  conceal  himself  in  the  bushes. 

Sakuntala  now  belongs  to  the  king;  they  are  united  ac- 
cording to  one  of  the  eight  forms  of  Hindoo  marriage  known 
as  that  of  free  choice.  After  remaining  with  her  a  short 
time  the  king  returns  to  his  other  wives  at  court.  Before 
leaving  he  puts  a  seal  ring  on  her  finger  and  tells  her  how 
she  can  count  the  days  till  a  messenger  shall  arrive  to  bring 
her  to  his  palace.  But  month  after  month  passes  and  no 
messenger  arrives.  "  The  king  has  acted  abominably  toward 
Sakuntala,"  says  one  of  her  friends  ;  "he  has  deceived  an  in- 
experienced girl  who  put  faith  in  him.  He  has  not  even 

1 1  have  here  followed  Kellner,  though  Boehtlingk's  version  is  more  literal 
and  Oriental  :  ll  Mir  aber  brennt  Liebf,  ()  Grausamer,  Tag  und  Nacht  gewaltig 
die  Glieder,  deren  Wunsche  auf  dich  gerichtet  smd. " 


680  INDIA— DRAMAS 

written  her  a  letter,  and  she  will  soon  be  a  mother."  She 
feels  convinced,  however,  that  the  king's  neglect  is  due  to 
the  action  of  a  saint  who  had  cursed  Sakuntala  because  she 
had  riot  waited  on  him  promptly.  "Like  a  drunkard,  her 
lover  shall  forget  what  has  happened,"  was  his  curse.  Ke- 
lenting  somewhat,  he  added  afterward  that  the  force  of  the 
curse  could  be  broken  by  bringing  to  the  king  some  orna- 
ment that  he  might  have  left  as  a  souvenir.  Sakuntala  lias 
her  ring,  and  relying  on  that  she  departs  with  a  retinue  for 
the  royal  abode.  On  the  way,  in  crossing  a  river,  she  loses 
the  ring,  and  when  she  confronts  the  king  he  fails  to  remem- 
ber her  and  dismisses  her  ignominiously.  A  fisherman  af- 
terward finds  the  ring  in  the  stomach  of  a  fish,  and  it  gets 
into  the  hands  of  the  king,  who,  at  sight  of  it,  remembers 
Sakuntala  and  is  heartbroken  at  his  cruel  conduct  toward 
her.  But  he  cannot  at  once  make  amends,  as  he  has  chased 
her  away,  and  it  is  not  till  some  years  later,  and  with  super- 
natural aid,  that  they  are  reunited. 


II.       THE    STORY    OP    URVASI 

The  saint  Narayana  had  spent  so  many  years  in  solitude, 
addicted  to  prayers  and  ascetic  practices,  that  the  gods 
dreaded  his  growing  power,  which  was  making  him  like  unto 
them,  and  to  break  it  they  sent  down  to  him  some  of  the  se- 
ductive apsaras.  But  the  saint  held  a  flower-stalk  to  his 
loins,  and  Urvasi  was  born,  a  girl  more  beautiful  than  the 
celestial  bayaderes  who  had  been  sent  to  tempt  him.  He 
gave  this  girl  to  the  apsaras  to  take  as  a  present  to  the  god 
Indra,  whose  entertainers  they  were.  vShe  soon  became  the 
special  ornament  of  heaven  and  Indra  used  her  to  bring  the 
saints  to  fall. 

One  day  King  Pururavas,  while  out  driving,  hears  female 
voices  calling  for  help.  Five  apsaras  appear  and  implore 
him,  if  he  can  arive  through  the  air,  to  come  to  the  assistance 
of  their  companion  Urvasi,  who  has  been  seized  and  carried 
away,  northward,  by  a  demon.  The  king  forthwith  orders 
his  charioteer  to  steer  in  that  direction,  and  erelong  he  re- 
turns victorious,  with  the  captured  maiden  on  his  chariot. 
She  is  still  overcome  with  terror,  her  eyes  are  closed,  and  as 
the  king  gazes  at  her  he  doubts  that  she  can  be  the  daughter  of 
a  cold  and  learned  hermit ;  the  moon  must  have  created  her, 
or  the  god  of  love  himself.  As  the  chariot  descends,  Urvasi, 
frightened,  leans  against  the  king's  shoulder,  and  the  little 
hairs  on  his  body  stand  up  straight,  so  much  is  he  pleased 


THE    STORY    OF    URVASI  681 

thereat.  He  brings  her  buck  to  the  other  apsaras,  who  are 
on  a  mountiiin-top  awaiting  their  return.  Urvasi,  too  much 
overcome  to  thank  him  for  her  rescue,  begs  one  of  her  friends 
to  do  it  for  her,  whereupon  the  apsaras,  bidding  him  good- 
by,  rise  into  the  air.  Urvasi  lingers  a  moment  on  the  pre- 
tence that  her  pearl  necklace  has  got  entangled  in  a  vine,  but 
in  reality  to  get  another  peep  at  the  king,  who  addresses 
fervent  words  of  thanks  to  the  bush  for  having  thus  given 
him  another  chance  to  look  on  her  face.  "  Rising  into  the 
air/'  he  exclaims,  "  this  girl  tears  my  heart  from  my  body  and 
carries  it  away  with  her." 

The  queen  soon  notices  that  his  heart  has  gone  away 
with  another.  She  complains  of  this  estrangement  to  her 
maid,  to  whom  she  sets  the  task  of  discovering  the  secret 
of  it.  The  maid  goes  at  it  slyly.  Addressing  the  king's 
viduschaka  (confidential  adviser),  she  informs  him  that  the 
queen  is  very  unhappy  because  the  .king  addressed  her  by 
the  name  of  the  girl  he  longs  for.  "What?"  retorts  the 
viduschaka — "  the  king  himself  has  revealed  the  secret? 
He  called  her  Urvasi  ?  "  "  And  who,  your  honor,  is  Urvasi  ?  " 
says  the  maid.  "  She  is  one  of  the  apsaras,"  he  says.  "  The 
sight  of  her  has  infatuated  the  king's  senses  so  that  he  tort- 
ures not  only  the  queen  but  me,  the  Brahman,  too,  for  he 
no  longer  thinks  of  eating."  But  he  expresses  his  conviction 
that  the  folly  will  not  last  long,  and  the  maid  departs. 

Urvasi,  tortured,  like  the  king,  by  love  and  doubt,  sup- 
presses her  bashf ulness  and  asks  one  of  her  friends  to  go  with 
her  to  get  her  pearl  necklace  which  she  had  left  entangled  in 
the  vine.  "  Then  you  are  hurrying  down,  surely,  to  see  Pur- 
uravas,  the  king  ?  "  says  the  friend  ;  "  and  whom  have  you  sent 
in  advance  ?  "  "  My  heart,"  replied  Urvasi.  So  they  fly  down 
to  the  earth,  invisible  to  mortals,  and  when  they  see  the  king, 
Urvasi  declares  that  he  seems  to  her  even  more  beautiful  than 
at  their  first  meeting.  They  listen  to  the  conversation  be- 
tween him  and  the  viduschaka.  The  latter  advises  his  mas- 
ter to  seek  consolation  by  dreaming  of  a  union  with  his  love, 
or  by  painting  her  picture,  but  the  king  answers  that  dreams 
cannot  come  to  a  man  who  is  unable  to  sleep,  nor  would  a 
picture  be  able  to  stop  his  flood  of  tears.  "  The  god  of  love 
has  pierced  my  heart  and  now  he  tortures  me  by  denying  my 
wish."  Encouraged  by  these  words,  but  unwilling  to  make 
herself  visible,  Urvasi  takes  a  piece  of  birch-bark,  writes  on 
it  a  message,  and  throws  it  down.  The  king  sees  it  fall, 
picks  it  up  and  reads  :  "I  love  you,  0  master ;  you  did  not 
know,  nor  I,  that  you  burn  with  love  for  me.  No  longer 
do  I  find  rest  on  my  coral  couch,  and  the  air  of  the  celestial 


682  INDIA— DRAMAS 

grove  burns  me  like  fire."  "What  will  he  say  to  that?" 
wonders  Urvasi,  and  her  friend  replies,  ' '  Is  there  not  an  an- 
swer in  his  limbs,,  which  have  become  like  withered  lotos 
stalks  ?"  The  king  declares  to  his  friend  that  the  message 
on  the  leaf  has  made  him  as  happy  as  if  he  had  seen  his  be- 
loved's face.  Fearing  that  the  perspiration  on  his  hand  (the 
sign  of  violent  love)  might  wash  away  the  message,  he  gives 
the  birch-bark  to  the  viduschaka.  Urvasi's  friend  now  makes 
herself  visible  to  the  king,  who  welcomes  her,  but  adds  that 
the  sight  of  her  delights  him  not  as  it  did  when  Urvasi  was 
with  her.  "  Urvasi  bows  before  you,"  the  apsara  answers, 
"  and  sends  this  message  :  '  You  were  my  protector,  0  master, 
when  a  demon  offered  me  violence.  Since  I  saw  you,  god 
Kama  has  tortured  me  violently ;  therefore  you  must  some- 
time take  pity  on  me,  great  king  ! ' '  And  the  king  retorts  : 
"  The  ardor  of  love  is  here  equally  great  on  either  side.  It  is 
proper  that  hot  iron  be  welded  with  hot  iron."  After  this 
Urvasi  makes  herself  visible,  too,  but  the  king  has  hardly  had 
time  to  greet  her,  when  a  celestial  messenger  arrives  to  sum- 
mon her  hastily  back  to  heaven,  to  her  own  great  distress  and 
the  king's. 

.  Left  alone,  the  king  wants  to  seek  consolation  in  the  mes- 
sage written  on  the  birch-bark.  But  to  their  consternation, 
they  cannot  find  it.  It  had  dropped  from  the  viduschaka's 
hand  and  the  wind  had  carried  it  off.  "  0  wind  of  Malaya," 
laments  the  king,  "  you  are  welcome  to  all  the  fragrance 
breathing  from  the  flowers,  but  of  what  use  to  you  is  the  love- 
letter  you  have  stolen  from  me  ?  Know  you  not  that  a  hun- 
dred such  consolers  may  save  the  life  of  a  love-sick  man  who 
cannot  hope  soon  to  attain  the  goal  of  his  desires  ?" 

In  the  meantime  the  queen  and  her  maid  have  appeared 
in  the  background.  They  come  across  the  birch-bark,  see 
the  message  on  it,  and  the  maid  reads  it  aloud.  "  With  this 
gift  of  the  celestial  girl  let  us  now  meet  her  lover,"  says  the 
queen,  and  stepping  forward,  she  confronts  the  king  with 
the  words  :  ' '  Here  is  the  bark,  my  husband.  You  need  not 
search  for  it  longer."  Denial  is  useless  ;  the  king  prostrates 
himself  at  her  feet,  confessing  his  guilt  and  begging  her  not 
to  be  angry  at  her  slave.  But  she  turns  her  back  and  leaves 
him.  "  I  cannot  blame  her,"  says  the  king  ;  "  homage  to 
a  woman  leaves  her  cold  unless  it  is  inspired  by  love,  as  an 
artificial  jewel  leaves  an  expert  who  knows  the  fire  of  genuine 
stones."  "  Though  Urvasi  has  my  heart,"  he  adds,  "  yet  I 
highly  esteem  the  queen.  Of  course,  I  shall  meet  her  with 
firmness,  since  she  has  disdained  my  prostration  at  her  feet." 

The    reason   why   Urvasi   had  been   summoned    back    to 


THE   STORY   OF  URVASI  683 

heaven  so  suddenly  was  that  Indra  wanted  to  hear  a  play 
which  the  celestial  manager  had  rehearsed  with  the  apsaras. 
Urvasi  takes  her  part,  but  her  thoughts  are  so  incessantly 
with  the  king  that  she  blunders  repeatedly.  She  puts  passion 
into  lines  which  do  not  call  for  it,  and  once,  when  she  is 
called  on  to  answer  the  question,  "  To  whom  does  her  heart 
incline  ?"  she  utters  the  name  of  her  own  lover  instead  of  the 
one  of  similar  sound  called  for  in  the  play.  For  these  mis- 
takes her  teacher  curses  her  and  forbids  her  remaining  in 
heaven  any  longer.  Then  Indra  says  to  the  abashed  maiden : 
"  I  must  do  a  favor  to  the  king  whom  you  love  and  who  aids 
me  in  battle.  Go  and  remain  with  him  at  your  will,  until 
you  have  borne  him  a  son." 

Ignorant  of  the  happiness  in  store  for  him,  the  king  mean- 
while continues  to  give  utterance  to  his  longings  and  laments. 
"  The  day  has  not  passed  so  very  sadly.;  there  was  something 
to  do,  no  time  for  longing.  But  how  shall  I  spend  the  long 
night,  for  which  there  is  no  pastime  ? "  The  viduschaka 
counsels  hope,  and  the  king  grants  that  even  the  tortures  of 
love  have  their  advantage  ;  for,  as  the  force  of  the  torrent  is 
increased  a  hundredfold  if  a  rock  is  interposed,  so  is  the 
power  of  love  if  obstacles  retard  the  blissful  union.  The 
twitching  of  his  right  arm  (a  favorable  sign)  augments  his 
hope.  At  the  moment  when  he  remarks  :  "  The  anguish  of 
love  increases  at  night,"  Urvasi  and  her  friend. came  down 
from  the  air  and  hover  about  him.  "  Nothing  can  cool  the 
flame  of  my  love,"  he  continues,  "  neither  a  bed  of  fresh 
flowers,  nor  moonlight,  nor  strings  of  pearls,  nor  sandal 
ointment  applied  to  the  whole  body.  The  only  part  of  my 
body  that  has  attained  its  goal  is  this  shoulder,  which 
touched  her  in  the  chariot."  At  these  words  Urvasi  boldly 
steps  before  the  king,  but  he  pays  no  attention  to  her.  "  The 
great  king,"  she  complains  to  her  friend,  "remains  cold 
though  I  stand  before  him."  "Impetuous  girl,"  is  the  an- 
swer, "you  are  still  wearing  your  magic  veil ;  he  cannot  see 
you." 

At  this  moment  voices  are  heard  and  the  queen  appears 
with  her  retinue.  She  had  already  sent  a  message  to  the 
king  to  inform  him  that  she  was  no  longer  angry  and  had 
made  a  vow  to  fast  and  wear  no  finery  until  the  moon  had 
entered  the  constellation  of  Rohini,  in  order  to  express  her 
penitence  and  conciliate  her  husband.  The  king,  greeting 
her,  expresses  sorrow  that  she  should  weaken  her  body,  deli- 
cate as  lotos  root,  by  thus  fasting.  "  What  ?  "  he  adds,  "  you 
yourself  conciliate  the  slave  who  ardently  longs  to  be  with 
yon  and  who  is  anxious  to  win  your  indulgence  ! "  ( '  What 


684  INDIA— DRAMAS 

great  esteem  he  shows  her  ! "  exclaims  Urvasi,  with-  a  con- 
fused smile;  but  her  companion  retorts :  "You  foolish  girl, 
a  man  of  the  world  is  most  polite  when  he  loves  another 
woman."  "  The  power  of  my  vow/'  says  the  queen,  "is  re- 
vealed in  his  solicitude  for  me."  Then  she  folds  her  hands, 
and,  bowing  reverently,  says  :  "  I  call  to  witness  these  two 
gods,  the  Moon  and  his  feohini,  that  I  beg  my  husband's 
pardon.  Henceforth  may  he,  unhindered,  associate  with  the 
woman  whom  he  loves  and  who  is  glad  to  be  his  companion." 
"  Is  he  indifferent  to  you  ?"  asks  the  viduschaka.  "  Fool  !" 
she  replies;  "I  desire  only  my  husband's  happiness,  and 
give  up  my  own  for  that.  Judge  for  yourself  whether  I  love 
him." 

When  the  queen  has  left,  the  king  once  more  abandons  him- 
self to  his  yearning  for  his  beloved.  "Would  that  she  came 
from  behind  and  put  her  lotos  hands  over  my  eyes."  Urvasi 
hears  the  words  and  fulfils  his  wish.  He  knows  who  it  is, 
for  every  little  hair  on  his  bpdy  stands  up  straight.  "  Do 
not  consider  me  forward  if  now  I  embrace  his  body,"  says 
Urvasi  to  her  friend  ;  "  for  the  queen  has  given  him  to  me." 
"You  take  my  body  as  the  queen's  present,"  says  the  king  ; 
"  but  who,  you  thief,  allowed  you  before  that  to  steal  my 
heart  ?"  "  It  shall  always  be  yours  and  I  your  slave  alone," 
he  continues.  "  When  I  took  possession  of  tbe  throne  I  did 
not  feel  so  near  my  goal  as  now  when  I  begin  my  service  at 
your  feet."  "  The  moon's  rays  which  formerly  tortured  me 
now  refresh  my  body,  and  welcome  are  Kama's  arrows  which 
used  to  wound  me."  "Did  my  delaying  do  you  harm?" 
asks  Urvasi,  and  he  replies  :  "  Oh,  no  !  Joy  is  sweeter  when 
it  follows  distress.  He  who  has  been  exposed  to  the  sun  is 
cooled  by  the  tree's  shade  more  than  others;"  and  he  ends 
the  same  with  the  words  :  "  A  night  seemed  to  consist  of  a 
hundred  nights  ere  my  wish  was  fulfilled  ;  may  it  be  the  same 
now  that  I  am  with  you,  0  beauty  !  how  glad  I  should  be  !" 

Absorbed  by  his  happy  love,  the  king  hands  over  the  reins 
of  government  to  his  ministers  and  retires  with  Urvasi  to  a 
forest.  One  day  he  looks  for  a  moment  thoughtfully  at  an- 
other girl,  whereat  Urvasi  gets  so  jealous  that  she  refuses  to 
accept  his  apology,  and  in  her  anger  forgets  that  no  woman 
must  walk  into  the  forest  of  the  war-god.  Hardly  has  she 
entered  when  she  is  changed  into  a  vine.  The  king  goes  out  of 
his  mind  from  grief  ;  he  roams  all  over  the  forest,  alternately 
fainting  and  raving,  calling  upon  peacock  and  cuckoo,  bee, 
swan,  and  elephant,  antelope,  mountain,  and  river  to  give 
him  tidings  of  his  beloved,  her  with  the  antelope  eyes  and 
the  big  breasts,  and  the  hips  so  broad  that  she  can  only  walk 


MALAVIKA   AND   AGNIMITRA  685 

slowly.  At  last  he  sees  in  a  cleft  a  large  red  jewel  and  picks 
it  up.  It  is  the  stone  of  union  which  enables  lovers  to  find 
one  another.  An  impulse  leads  him  to  embrace  the  vine 
before  him  and  it  changes  to  Urvasi.  A  son  is  afterward 
born  to  her,  but  she  sends  him  away  before  the  king  knows 
about  it,  and  has  him  brought  up  secretly  lest  she  be  com- 
pelled to  return  at  once  to  heaven.  But  Indra  sends  a  mes- 
senger to  bring  her  permission  to  remain  with  the  king  as 
long  as  he  lives. 


III.      MALAVIKA   AND    AGNIMITRA 

Queen  Dharini,  the  head  wife  of  King  Agnimitra,  has  re- 
ceived from  her  brother  a  young  girl  named  Malavika,  whom 
he  has  rescued  from  robbers.  The  queen  is  just  having  a 
large  painting  made  of  herself  and  her  retinue,  and  Malavika 
finds  a  place  on  it  at  her  side.  The  king  sees  the  picture 
and  eagerly  inquires:  "  Who  is  that  beautiful  maiden  ?  "  The 
suspicious  queen  does  not  answer  his  question,  but  takes 
measures  to  have  the  girl  carefully  concealed  from  him  and 
kept  busy  with  dancing  lessons.  But  the  king  accidentally 
hears  Malavika's  name  and  makes  up  his  mind  that  he  must 
have  her.  "  Arrange  some  stratagem,"  he  says  to  his  vidu- 
schaka,  "  so  I  may  see  her  bodily  whose  picture  I  beheld  ac- 
cidentally." The  viduschaka  promptly  stirs  up  a  dispute 
between  the  two  dancing-masters,  which  is  to  be  settled  by 
an  exhibition  of  their  pupils  before  the  king.  The  queen 
sees  through  the  trick  too  late  to  prevent  its  execution  and 
the  king's  desire  is  gratified.  He  sees  Malavika,  and  finds 
her  more  beautiful  even  than  her  picture — her  face  like  the 
harvest  moon,  her  bosom  firm  and  swelling,  her  waist  small 
enough  to  span  with  the  hand,  her  hips  big,  her  toes  beauti- 
fully curved.  She  has  never  seen  the  king,  yet  loves  him 
passionately.  Her  left  eye  twitches — a  favorable  sign — and 
she  sings  :  "  I  must  obey  the  will  of  others,  but  my  heart 
desires  you  ;  1  cannot  conceal  it."  "  She  uses  her  song  as  a 
means  of  offering  herself  to  you,"  says  the  viduschaka  to  the 
king,  who  replies  :  "  In  the  presence  of  the  queen  her  love 
saw  no  other  way."  "  The  Creator  made  her  the  poisoned 
arrow  of  the  god  of  love,"  he  continues  to  his  friend  after 
the  performance  is  over  and  they  are  alone.  "Applv  your 
mind  and  think  out  other  plans  for  meeting  her."  '"You 
remind  me,"  says  the  viduschaka,  "of  a  vulture  that  hovers 
over  a  butcher's  shop,  filled  with  greed  for  meat  but  also 
with  fear.  1  believe  the  eagerness  to  have  your  will  has 


686  INDIA— DRAMAS 

made  you  ill."  "How  were  it  possible  to  remain' well  ?" 
the  king  retorts.  "  My  heart  no  longer  desires  intimacies 
with  any  woman  in  all  my  harem.  To  her  with  the  beau- 
tiful eyes,  alone  shall  my  love  be  devoted  henceforth." 

In  the  royal  gardens  stands  an  asoka  tree  whose  bloom  is 
retarded.  To  hasten  it,  the  tree  must  be  touched  by  the 
decorated  foot  of  a  beautiful  woman.  The  queen  was  to 
have  done  this,  but  an  accident  has  injured  her  foot  and  she 
has  asked  Malavika  to  take  her  place.  While  the  king  and 
his  adviser  are  walking  in  the  garden  they  see  Malavika  all 
alone.  Her  love  has  made  her  wither  like  a  jasmine  wreath 
blighted  by  frost.  "How  long/'  she  laments,  "  will  the  god 
of  love  make  me  endure  this  anguish,  from  which  there  is  no 
relief?"  One  of  the  queen's  maids  presently  arrives  with 
the  paints  and  rings  for  decorating  Malavika's  feet.  The 
king  watches  the  proceeding,  and  after  the  maiden  has 
touched  the  tree  with  her  left  foot  he  steps  forward,  to  the 
confusion  of  the  two  women.  He  tells  Malavika  that  he,  like 
the  tree,  has  long  had  no  occasion  to  bloom,  and  begs  her  to 
make  him  also,  who  loves  only  her,  happy  with  the  nectar  of 
her  touch.  Unluckily  this  whole  scene  has  also  been  secretly 
witnessed  by  Iravati,  the  second  of  the  king's  wives,  who 
steps  forward  at  this  moment  and  sarcastically  tells  Mala- 
vika to  do  his  bidding.  The  viduschaka  tries  to  help  out 
his  confused  master  by  pretending  that  the  meeting  was  acci- 
dental, and  the  king  humbly  calls  himself  her  loving  hus- 
band, her  slave,  asks  her  pardon,  and  prostrates  himself  ; 
but  she  exclaims  :  "  These  are  not  the  feet  of  Malavika  whose 
touch  you  desire  to  .still  your  longing/'  and  departs.  The 
king  feels  quite  hurt  by  her  action.  "  How  unjust,"  he 
exclaims,  "is  love  !  My  heart  belongs  to  the  dear  girl  , 
therefore  Iravati  did  me  a  service  by  not  accepting  my  pros- 
tration. And  yet  it  was  love  that  led  her  to  do  that  ! 
Therefore  I  must  not  overlook  her  anger,  but  try  to  conciliate 
her." 

Iravati  goes  straight  to  the  first  queen  to  report  on  their 
common  husband's  new  escapade.  When  the  king  hears  of 
this  he  is  astonished  at  "such  persistent  anger," and  dismayed 
on  learning  further  that  Malavika  is  now  confined  in  a  dun- 
geon, under  lock  and  key,  which  cannot  be  opened  unless  a 
messenger  arrives  with  the  queen's  own  seal  ring.  But  once 
more  the  viduschaka  devises  a  ruse  which  puts  him  in  pos- 
session of  the  seal  ring.  The  maiden  is  liberated  and  brought 
to  the  water-house,  'whither  the  king  hastens  to  meet  her 
with  the  viduschaka,  who  soon  finds  an  excuse  for  going 
outside  with  the  girl's  companion,  leaving  the  lovers  alone. 


MALAVIKA   AND   AGNIMITRA  687 

"  Why  do  you  still  hesitate,  0  beauty,  to  unite  yourself  with 
one  who  has  so  long  longed  for  your  love  ? "  exclaims  the 
king  ;  and  Malavika  answers  :  "  What  I  should  like  to  do  I 
dare  not ;  I  fear  the  queen."  "  You  need  not  fear  her/'  "  Did 
I  not  see  the  master  himself  seized  with  fear  when  he  saw 
the  queen  ?  "  "  Oh,  that,"  replies  the  king,  "  was  only  a  mat- 
ter of  good  breeding,  as  becomes  princes.  But  you,  with  the 
long  eyes,  I  love  so  much  that  my  life  depends  on  the  hope 
that  you  love  me  too.  Take  me,  take  me,  who  long  have  loved 
you."  With  these  words  he  embraces  her,  while  she  tries  to 
resist.  "  How  charming  is  the  coyness  of  young  girls  ! "  he 
exclaims.  "Trembling,  she  tries  to  restrain  my  hand,  which 
is  busy  with  her  girdle  ;  while  I  embrace  her  ardently  she  puts 
up  her  own  hands  to  protect  her  bosom  ;  her  countenance 
with  the  beautiful  eyelashes  she  turns  aside  when  I  try  to 
raise  it  for  a  kiss  ;  by  thus  struggling  she  affords  me  the  same 
delight  as  if  I  had  attained  what  I  desire." 

Again  the  second  queen  and  her  maid  appear  unexpectedly 
and  disturb  the  king's  bliss.  Her  object  is  to  go  to  the  king's 
picture  in  the  water-house  and  beg  its  pardon  for  having  been 
disrespectful,  this  being  better,  in  her  opinion,  than  appearing 
before  the  king  himself,  since  he  has  given  his  heart  to  an- 
other, while  in  that  picture  he  has  eyes  for  her  alone  (as  Mala- 
vika, too,  had  noticed  when  she  entered  the  water-house). 
The  viduschaka  has  proved  an  unreliable  sentinel ;  he  has 
fallen  asleep  at  the  door  of  the  house.  The  queen's  maid 
perceives  this  and,  to  tease  him,  touches  him  with  a  crooked 
staff.  He  awakes  crying  that  a  snake  has  bitten  him.  The 
king  runs  out  and  is  confronted  again  by  IravatL  "  Well, 
well  ! "  she  exclaims,  "  this  couple  meet  in  broad  daylight  and 
without  hindrance  to  gratify  their  wishes  !"  "An  unheard- 
of  greeting  is  this,  my  dear,"  said  the  king.  "  You  are  mis- 
taken ;  I  see  no  cause  for  anger.  I  merely  liberated  the  two 
girls  because  this  is  a  holiday,  on  which  servants  must  not  be 
confined,  and  they  came  here  to  thank  me."  But  he  is  glad 
to  escape  when  a  messenger  arrives  opportunely  to  announce 
that  a  yellow  ape  has  frightened  the  princess. 

"  My  heart  trembles  when  I  think  of  the  queen,"  says  Mal- 
avika, left  alone  with  her  companion.  "  What  will  become  of 
me  now  ?"  But  the  queen  knows  her  duty,  according  to 
Hindoo  custom.  She  makes  her  maids  array  Malavika  in 
marriage  dress,  and  then  sends  a  message  to  the  king  saying 
that  she  awaits  him  with  Malavika  and  her  attendants.  The 
girl  does  not  know  why  she  has  been  so  richly  attired,  and 
when  the  king  beholds  her  he  says  to  himself  :  "  We  are  so 
near  and  yet  apart,  i  seem  to  myself  like  the  bird  Tschak- 


688  INDIA— DRAMAS 

ravaka  j1  and  the  name  of  the  night  which  does  not  allow  me 
to  be  united  with  my  love  is  Dharini."  At  that  moment  two 
captive  girls  are  brought  before  the  assemblage,  and  to  every- 
one's surprise  they  greet  Malavika  as  "  Princess/'  A  princess 
she  proves  to  be,  on  inquiry,  and  the  queen  now  carries  out 
the  plan  she  had  had  in  her  mind,  with  the  consent  also  of  the 
second  queen,  who  sends  her  apologies  at  the  same  time. 
"Take  her,"  says  Dharini  to  the  king,  and  at  a  hint  of  the 
viduschaka  she  takes  a  veil  and  by  putting  it  on  the  new 
bride  makes  her  a  queen  and  spouse  of  equal  rank  with  herself. 
And  the  king  answers  :  "  I  am  not  surprised  at  your  magna- 
nimity. If  women  are  faithful  and  kind  to  their  husbands, 
they  even  bring,  by  way  of  serving  him,  new  wives  to  him, 
like  unto  the  rivers  which  provide  that  the  water  of  other 
streams  also  is  carried  to  the  ocean.  I  have  now  but  one  more 
wish  ;  be  hereafter  always,  irascible  queen,  prepared  to  do  me 
homage.  I  wish  this  for  the  sake  of  the  other  women." 


IV.    THE    STORY    OF   SAVITRI 

King  Asvapati,  though  an  honest,  virtuous,  pious  man,  was 
not  blessed  with  offspring,  and  this  made  him  unhappy.2  He 
curbed  all  his  appetites  and  for  eighteen  years  lived  a  life  of 
devotion  to  his  religious  duties.  At  the  expiration  of  these 
years  Savitri,  the  daughter  of  the  sun-god,  appeared  to  him 
and  offered  to  reward  him  by  granting  a  favor.  "  Sons  I 
crave,  many  sons,  0  goddess,  sons  to  preserve  my  family/"  he 
answered.  But  Savitri  promised  him  a  daughter ;  and  she 
was  born  to  him  by  his  oldest  wife  and  was  named  after  the 
goddess  Savitri.  She  grew  up  to  be  so  beautiful,  so  broad - 
hipped,  like  a  golden  statue,  that  she  seemed  of  divine  origin, 
and,  abashed,  none  of  the  men  came  to  choose  her  as  his  wife. 
This  saddened  her  father  and  he  said  :  "  Daughter,  it  is  time 
for  you  to  marry,  but  no  one  comes  to  ask  me  for  you.  Go 
and  seek  your  own  husband,  a  man  your  equal  in  worth. 
And  when  you  have  chosen,  you  must  let  me  know.  Then  I 
will  consider  him,  and  betroth  you.  For,  according  to  the 
laws,  a  father  who  does  not  give  his  daughter  in  marriage  is 
blameworthy."  And  Savitri  went  on  a  golden  chariot  with  a 
royal  retinue,  and  she  visited  all  the  groves  of  the  saints  and 

1  Anas  Casarca,  a  species  of  duck  which,  in  Hindoo  poetry,  is  allowed  to  be 
•with  his  mate  only  in  the  daytime  and  must  leave  her  at  night,  in  consequence 
of  a  curse  ;  thereupon  begin 'mutual  lamentations. 

2  For  a  Hindoo,  unless  he  has   a   son    to    make  offerings  after  his  death,  is 
doomed  to  live  over  again  his  earthly  life  with  all    its  sorrows.     A  daughter 
will  do,  provided  she  has  a  son  to  attend  to  the  rites. 


THE   STORY   OF   SAVITRI  689 

at  last  found  a  man  after  her  heart,  whose  name  was  Satya- 
vant.  Then  she  returned  to  her  father — who  was  just  con- 
versing with  the  divine  sage  Narada — and  told  him  of  her 
choice.  But  Niirada  exclaimed :  "  Woe  and  alas,  you  have 
chosen  one  who  is,  indeed,  endowed  with  all  the  virtues,  but 
who  is  doomed  to  die  a  year  from  this  day."  Thereupon  the 
king  begged  Savitri  to  choose  another  for  her  husband,  but 
she  replied  :  "  May  his  life  be  long  or  short,  may  he  have 
merits  or  no  merits,  I  have  selected  him  as  my  husband, 
and  a  second  I  shall  not  choose."  Then  the  king  and  Narad  a 
agreed  not  to  oppose  her,  and  she  went  with  her  father  to  the 
grove  where  she  had  seen  Satyavant,  the  man  of  her  choice. 
The  king  spoke  to  this  man's  father  and  said  :  "  Here,  0 
royal  saint,  is  my  lovely  daughter,  Savitri  ;  take  her  as  your 
daughter-in-law  in  accordance  with  your  duty  as  friend." 
And  the  saint  replied  :  "  Long  have  I  desired  such  a  bond  of 
relationship  ;  but  I  have  lost  my  royal  dignity,  and  how  could 
your  daughter  endure  the  hardships  of  life  in  the  forest  ?  " 
But  the  king  replied  that  they  heeded  not  such  things  and 
their  mind  was  made  up.  So  all  the  Brahmans  were  called  to- 
gether and  the  king  gave  his  daughter  to  Satyavant,  who  was 
pleased  to  win  a  wife  endowed  with  so  many  virtues. 

When  her  father  had  departed,  Savitri  put  away  all  her  or- 
naments and  assumed  the  plain  garb  of  the  saints.  She  was 
modest,  self-contained,  and  strove  to  make  herself  useful  and 
to  fulfil  the  wishes  of  all.  But  she  counted  the  days,  and 
the  time  came  when  she  had  to  say  to  herself,  "  In  three  days 
he  must  die."  And  she  made  a  vow  and  stood  in  one  place 
three  days  and  nights  ;  on  the  following  day  he  was  to  die. 
In  the  afternoon  her  husband  took  his  axe  on  his  shoulder 
and  went  into  the  primeval  forest  to  get  some  wood  and  fruits. 
For  the  first  time  she  asked  to  go  with  him.  "  The  way  is  too 
difficult  for  you,"  said  he,  but  she  persisted  ;  and  her  heart 
was  consumed  by  the  flames  of  sadness.  He  called  her  atten- 
tion, as  they  walked  on,  to  the  limpid  rivers  and  noble  trees 
decked  with  flowers  of  many  colors,  but  she  had  eyes  only  for 
him,  following  his  every  movement ;  for  she  looked  on  him 
as  a  dead  man  from  that  hour.  He  was  filling  his  basket  with 
fruits  when  suddenly  he  was  seized  with  violent  headache 
and  longing  for  sleep.  She  took  his  head  on  her  lap  and 
awaited  his  last  moment. 

All  at  once  she  saw  a  man,  in  red  attire,  of  fearful  aspect, 
with  a  rope  in  his  hand.  And  she  said  :  "Who  are  you  ?" 
"  You, "he  replied,  "are  a  woman  faithful  to  your  husband 
and  of  good  deeds,  therefore  will  I  answer  you.  I  am  Yama, 
and  1  have  come  to  take  away  your  husband,  whose  life  has 


690  INDIA— DRAMAS 

reached  its  goal."  And  with  a  mighty  jerk  he  drew  from  the 
husband's  body  his  spirit,  the  size  of  a  thumb,  and  forthwith 
the  breath  of  life  departed  from  the  body.  Having  carefully 
tied  the  soul,  Yama  departed  toward  the  south.  Savitri,  tort- 
ured by  anguish,  followed  him.  "  Turn  back,  Savitri,"  he 
said  ;  "  you  owe  your  husband  nothing  further,  and  you  have 
gone  as  far  as  you  can  go."  "  Wherever  my  husband  goes  or 
is  taken,  there  I  must  go  ;  that  is  an  eternal  duty."  There- 
upon Yama  offered  to  grant  any  favor  she  might  ask — except 
the  life  of  her  husband.  "  Restore  the  sight  of  the  blind  king, 
my  father-in-law,"  she  said  ;  and  he  answered  :  "It  is  done 
already."  He  offered  a  second  favor  and  she  said  :  "Restore 
his  kingdom  to  my  father-in-law  ; "  and  it  was  granted,  as 
was  also  the  third  wish  :  "  Grant  one  hundred  sons  to  my 
father,  who  has  none."  Her  fourth  wish,  too,  he  agreed  to: 
that  she  herself  might  have  a  hundred  sons  ;  and  as  he  made 
the  fifth  and  last  wish  unconditional,  she  said  :  "  Let  Satya- 
vant  return  to  life  ;  for,  bereft  of  him,  I  desire  not  happi- 
ness ;  bereft  of  him  I  desire  not  heaven  ;  I  desire  not  to  live 
bereft  of  him.  A  hundred  sons  you  have  promised  me,  yet 
you  take  away  my  husband  ?  I  desire  this  as  a  favor  ;  let 
Satyavant  live  ! " 

"  So  be  it  !"  answered  the  god  of  death  as  he  untied  the 
string.  "Your  husband  is  released  to  you,  blessed  one,  pride 
of  your  race.  Sound  and  well  you  shall  take  him  home,  live 
with  him  four  hundred  years,  beget  one  hundred  sons,  and 
all  of  them  shall  be  mighty  kings."  With  these  words  he 
went  his  way.  Life  returned  to  the  body  of  Satyavant,  and 
his  first  feeling  was  distress  lest  his  parents  grieve  over  his 
absence.  Thinking  him  too  weak  to  walk,  Savitri  wanted  to 
sleep  in  the  forest,  surrounded  by  a  fire  to  keep  off  wild  beasts, 
but  he  replied  :  "My  father  and  mother  are  distressed  even 
in  the  daytime  when  I  am  away.  Without  them  I  could  not 
live.  As  long  as  they  live  I  live  only  for  them.  Rather  than 
let  anything  happen  to  them,  I  give  up  my  own  life,  yon 
woman  with  the  beautiful  hips  ;  truly  I  shall  kill  myself  soon- 
er." So  she  helped  him  to  rise,  and  they  returned  that  very 
night,  to  the  great  joy  of  their  parents  and  friends ;  and  all 
the  promises  of  Yama  were  fulfilled. 


V.    NALA    AND    DAMAYANTI 

Once  npon  a  time  there  was  a  king  by  the  name  of  Nala, 
a  man  handsome  as  the  god  of  love,  endowed  with  all  the 
virtues,  a  favorite  of  men  and  women.  There  was  also 


NALA   AND    DAMAYANTI  691 

another  king,  named  Bhima,  the  Terrible.  He  was  renowned 
as  a  warrior  and  endowed  with  many  virtues  ;  yet  he  was  dis- 
contented, for  he  had  no  offspring.  But  it  happened  that  he 
was  visited  by  a  saint,  whom  he  entertained  so  hospitably  that 
the  Brahman  granted  him  in  return  a  favor  :  a  daughter  and 
three  sons  were  born  to  him.  The  daughter,  who  received 
the  name  of  Damayanti,  soon  became  famed  for  her  beauty, 
her  dignity,  and  her  gracious  manners.  She  seemed,  amid 
her  companions,  like  lightning  born  in  a  rain-cloud.  Her 
beauty  was  so  much  vaunted  in  the  hearing  of  King  Nala, 
and  his  merits  were  so  much  extolled  in  her  presence,  that 
the  two  conceived  an  ardent  passion  for  one  another,  though 
they  had  never  met.  Nala  could  hardly  endure  his  yearn- 
ings of  love  ;  near  the  apartments  of  the  women  there  was 
a  forest ;  into  that  he  retired,  living  in  solitude.  One  day  he 
came  across  some  gold-decked  geese.  He  caught  one  of  them 
and  she  said  to  him  :  "  Spare  my  life  and  I  promise  to  praise 
you  in  Darmiyanti's  presence  in  such  a  way  that  she  shall 
never  think  of  any  other  man."  He  did  so,  and  the  goose 
flew  to  Damayanti  and  said  :  "  There  is  a  man  named  Nala  ; 
he  is  like  the  celestial  knights  ;  no  human  being  equals  him. 
Yes,  if  you  could  become  Ms  wife,  it  would  be  worth  while 
that  you  were  born  and  became  so  beautiful.  You  are  the 
pearl  among  women,  but  Nala,  too,  is  the  best  of  men." 
Damayanti  begged  the  goose  to  go  and  speak  to  Nala  sim- 
ilarly about  her,  and  the  goose  said  "  Yes"  and  flew  away. 

From  that  moment  Damayanti  was  always  in  spirit  with 
Nala.  Sunk  in  reverie,  sad,  with  pale  face,  she  visibly  wasted 
away,  and  sighing  was  her  only,  her  favorite,  occupation. 
If  anyone  saw  her  gazing  upward,  absorbed  in  her  thoughts, 
he  might  have  almost  fancied  her  intoxicated.  Often  of  a 
sudden  her  whole  face  turned  pale  ;  in  short,  it  was  plain 
that  love-longing  held  her  senses  captive.  Lying  in  bed, 
sitting,  eating,  everything  is  distasteful  to  her ;  neither  at 
night  nor  by  day  does  sleep  come  to  her.  Ah  and  alas  !  thus 
her  wails  resound,  and  over  and  over  again  she  begins  to 
weep. 

Her  companions  noted  these  symptoms  and  they  said  to  the 
king  :  "  Damayanti  is  not  at  all  well."  The  king  reflected, 
"  Why  is  my  daughter  no  longer  well  ? "  and  it  occurred  to 
him  that  she  had  reached  the  marriageable  age,  and  it  became 
clear  to  him  that  he  must  without  delay  give  her  a  chance 
to  choose  a  husband.  So  he  invited  all  the  kings  to  assem- 
ble at  his  court  for  that  purpose  on  a  certain  day.  Soon 
the  roads  were  filled  with  kings,  princes,  elephants,  horses, 
wagons,  and  warriors,  for  she,  the  pearl  of  the  world,  was  de- 


692  INDIA— DRAMAS 

sired  of  men  above  all  other  women.  King  Nala  also  had  re- 
ceived the  message  and  set  out  on  his  journey  hopefully. 
Like  the  god  of  love  incarnate  he  looked.  Even  the  ruling 
gods  heard  of  the  great  event  and  went  to  join  the  worldly 
rulers.  As  they  approached  the  earth's  surface  they  beheld 
King  Nala.  Pleased  with  his  looks,  they  accosted  him  and 
said  :  "  We  are  immortals  journeying  on  account  of  Damay- 
anti.  As  for  you,  go  you  and  bring  Damayanti  this  message  : 
'  The  four  gods,  Indra,  Agni,  Yama,  Varuna,  desire  to  have 
you  for  a  wife.  Choose  one  of  these  four  gods  as  your  wed- 
ded husband/ » 

Folding  his  hands  humbly,  Nala  replied:  "The  very 
same  affair  has  induced  me  to  make  this  journey  :  therefore 
you  must  not  send  me  on  this  errand.  For  how  could  a  man 
who  himself  feels  the  longing  of  love  woo  the  same  woman 
for  another  ?"  But  the  gods  ordered  him  to  go  at  once,  be- 
cause he  had  promised  to  serve  them  before  he  knew  what  they 
wanted.  They  endowed  him  with  power  to  enter  the  care- 
fully guarded  apartments  of  the  princess,  and  presently  he 
found  himself  in  her  presence.  Her  lovely  face,  her  charm- 
ingly moulded  limbs,  her  slender  body,  her  beautiful  eyes, 
diffused  a  splendor  that  mocked  the  light  of  the  moon  and 
increased  his  pangs  of  love  ;  but  he  resolved  to  keep  his 
promise.  When  the  young  maidens  beheld  him  they  could 
not  utter  a  word  ;  they  were  dazed  by  the  splendor  of  his 
appearance,  and  abashed,  the  beautiful  virgins.  At  last  the 
astonished  Damayanti  began  to  speak  and  said  with  a  sweet 
smile  :  "  Who  are  you,  you  with  the  faultless  form,  who  in- 
crease the  yearnings  of  my  love  ?  Like  an  immortal  you 
came  here,  0  hero  !  I  would  like  to  know  you  better,  noble, 
good  man.  Closely  guarded  is  my  house,  however,  and  most 
strict  in  his  orders  is  the  king." 

"  My  name,  gracious  maiden,  is  Nala,"  he  replied.  "  As 
messenger  of  the  gods  have  I  come.  Four  of  them — Indra, 
Agni,  Varuna,  Yama — would  like  you  as  bride,  therefore 
choose  one  of  them  as  husband,  0  beauty  !  That  I  entered 
unseen  is  the  result,  too,  of  their  power.  Now  you  have 
heard  all  ;  act  as  seems  proper  to  you."  As  he  spoke  the 
names  of  the  gods  Damayanti  bowed  humbly ;  then  she 
laughed  merrily  and  said  :  "  Follow  you  the  inclination  of 
your  heart  and  be  kind  to  me.  What  can  I  do  to  please 
you  ?  Myself  and  all  that  is  mine  belongs  to  you.  Lay  aside 
all  diffidence,  my  master  and  husband!  Alas,  the  entire 
speech  of  the  gold-swans,  my  prince,  was  to  me  a  real  fire- 
brand. It  was  for  your  sake,  0  hero,  that  all  these  kings 
were  in  reality  called  together  so  hastily.  Should  you  ever, 


NALA   AND   DAMAYANTI  693 

0  my  pride,  be  able  to  scorn  me,  who  is  so  devoted  to  you, 

1  shall  resort  on  your  account  to  poison,  fire,  water,  rope." 
"  How  can  you,"  retorted  Nala,  "when  gods  are  present  in 
person,  direct  your  desires  toward  a  mortal  ?     Not  so  !     Let 
your  inclination  dwell  with  them,  the  creators  of  the  world. 
Remember,  too,  that  a  mortal  who  does  something  to  dis- 
please the  gods  is  doomed  to  death.    Therefore,  you  with  the 
faultless  limbs,  save  me  by  choosing  the  most  worthy  of  the 
gods.     Hesitate  no  longer.     Your  husband  must  be  one  of 
the  gods." 

Then  said  Damayanti,  while  her  eyes  were  diffused  with 
anguish-born  tears  :  "  My  reverence  to  the  gods  !  As  hus- 
band I  choose  you,  mighty  ruler  on  earth.  What  I  say  to 
you  is  immutable  truth."  "I  am  here  now  as  messenger  of 
the  gods,  and  cannot,  therefore,  plead  my  own  cause.  Later 
I  shall  have  a  chance  to  speak  for  myself,"  said  Nala ;  and 
Damayanti  said,  smiling,  while  tears  choked  her  voice:  "I 
shall  arrange  that  you  as  well  as  the  gods  *re  present  on  the 
day  of  my  husband-choice.  Then  I  shall  choose  you  in  the 
presence  of  the  immortals.  In  that  way  no  blame  can  fall 
on  anyone." 

Returning  to  the  gods,  Nala  told  them  just  what  hap- 
pened, not  omitting  her  promise  that  she  would  choose  him 
in  presence  of  the  gods.  The  day  now  was  approaching 
when  the  kings,  who,  urged  by  love-longings,  had  assembled, 
were  to  appear  before  the  maiden.  With  their  beautiful 
hair,  noses,  eyes,  and  brows,  these  royal  personages  shone 
like  the  stars  in  heaven.  They  fixed  their  gaze  on  the  maid- 
en's limbs,  and  wherever  the  eyes  first  rested  there  they 
remained  fixed  immovably.  But  the  four  gods  had  all 
assumed  the  exact  form  and  appearance  of  Nala,  and  when 
Damayanti  was  about  to  choose  him  she  saw  five  men  all 
alike.  How  could  she  tell  which  of  them  was  the  king,  her 
beloved  ?  After  a  moment's  thought  she  uttered  an  invoca- 
tion to  the  gods  calling  upon  them  to  assume  the  character- 
istics by  which  they  differ  from  mortals.  The  gods,  moved 
by  her  anguish,  her  faith  in  the  power  of  truth,  her  intelli- 
gence and  passionate  devotion,  heard  her  prayer  and  forth- 
with they  appeared  to  her  free  from  perspiration,  with  fixed 
gaze,  ever  fresh  wreath,  free  from  dust ;  and  none  of  them, 
while  standing,  touched  the  floor  ;  whereas  King  Nala  be- 
trayed himself  by  throwing  a  shadow,  by  having  dust  and 
perspiration  on  his  body,  a  withered  wreath,  and  eyelids  that 
winked. 

Thereupon  the  big-eyed  maiden  timidly  seized  him  by  the 
hem  of  his  garment  and  put  a  beautiful  wreath  on  his 


694  INDIA— DRAMAS 

shoulders.     Thus  did  she  choose  him  to  be  her  husband ; 
and  the  gods  grunted  them  special  favors. l 

According  to  Schroeder,  the  Hindoos  are  "the  romantic 
nation  "  among  the  ancients,  as  the  Germans  are  among  the 
moderns  ;  and  Albrecht  Weber  says  that  when,  a  little  more 
than  a  century  ago,  Europe  first  became  acquainted  with 
Sanscrit  literature,  it  was  noticed  that  in  the  amorous  poetry 
of  India  in  particular  the  sentimental  qualities  of  modern 
verse  were  traced  in  a  much  higher  degree  than  they  had 
been  found  in  Greek  and  Roman  literature.  All  this  is 
doubtless  true.  The  Hindoos  appear  to  have  been  the  only 
ancient  people  that  took  delight  in  forests,  rivers,  and  moun- 
tains as  we  do ;  in  reading  their  descriptions  of  Nature  we 
are  sometimes  affected  by  a  mysterious  feeling  of  awe,  like  a 
reminiscence  of  the  time  when  our  ancestors  lived  in  India. 
Their  amorous  hyperbole,  too,  despite  its  frequent  grotesque- 
ness,  affects  us  perhaps  more  sympathetically  than  that  of 
the  Greeks.  And  yet  the  essentials  of  what  we  call  romantic 
love  are  sb  entirely  absent  from  ancient  Hindoo  literature 
that  such  amorous  symptoms  as  are  noted  therein  can  all  be 
readily  brought  under  the  three  heads  of  artificiality,  sen- 
suality, and  selfishness. 

ARTIFICIAL   SYMPTOMS 

Commenting  on  the  directions  for  caressing  given  in  the 
Kama  Soutra,  Lamairesse  remarks  (56) :  "  All  these  practices 
and  caresses  are  conventional  rather  than  natural,  like  every- 

1  The  sequel  of  the  story,  relating  to  the  misfortunes  of  Nala  and  Damayanti 
after  marriage,  will  be  referred  to  presently.  The  famous  tale  herewith  briefly 
summarized  occurs  in  the  Mahdbhdrata,  the  great  epic  or  mythological  cyclo- 
paedia of  India,  which  embraces  220,000  metric  lines,  and  antedates  in  the  main 
the  Christian  era.  The  story  of  Savitri  also  occurs  in  the  Mahdbhdrata  ;  and 
these  two  episodes  have  been  pronounced  by  specialists  the  gems  not  only  of 
that  great  epic,  but  of  all  Hindoo  literature.  I  have  translated  from  the  edition 
of  H.  C.  Kellner,  which  is  based  on  the  latest  and  most  careful  revisions  of  the 
Sanscrit  text.  I  have  also  followed  Kellner's  edition  of  Kalidasa's  Sakimtala 
and  Otto  Pritze's  equally  critical  versions  of  the  same  poet's  Urvasi  and  Ma- 
lavika  and  Agnimitra.  Some  of  the  earlier  translators,  notably  Riickert.  per- 
mitted themselves  unwarranted  poetic  licenses,  modernizing  and  sentimental- 
izing the  text,  somewhat  as  Professor  Ebers  did  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of 
the  ancient  Egyptians.  I  will  add  that  while  I  have  been  obliged  to  greatly 
condense  the  stories  of  the  above  dramas,  I  have  taken  great  care  to  retain  all 
the  speeches  and  details  that  throw  light  on  the  Hindoo  conception  of  love, 
reserving  a  few,  however,  for  comment  in  the  following  paragraphs. 


ARTIFICIAL   SYMPTOMS  695 

thing  the  Hindoos  do.  A  bayadere  straying  to  Paris  and 
making  use  of  them  would  be  a  curiosity  so  extraordinary  that 
she  would  certainly  enjoy  a  succes  de  vogue  pour  rire."  Nail- 
marks  on  various  parts  of  the  body,  blows,  bites,  meaningless 
exclamations  are  prescribed  or  described  in  the  diverse  love- 
scenes.  In  Hindoo  dramas  several  of  the  artificial  symptoms 
— pure  figments  of  the  poetic  fancy — are  incessantly  referred 
to.  One  of  the  most  ludicrous  of  them  is  the  drops  of  perspi- 
ration on  the  cheeks  or  other  parts  of  the  body,  which  are 
regarded  as  an  infallible  and  inevitable  sign  of  love.  Ur vagi's 
royal  lover  is  afraid  to  take  her  birch-bark  message  in  his 
hand  lest  his  perspiration  wipe  away  the  letters.  In  Bhava- 
bhuti's  drama,  Malati  and  Madhava,  the  heroine's  feet  per- 
spire so  profusely  from  excess  of  longing,  that  the  lacquer  of 
her  couch  is  melted  ;  and  one  of  the  stage  directions  in  the 
same  drama  is  :  "  Perspiration  appears  on  Madayantika,  with 
other  things  indicating  love." 

Another  of  these  grotesque  symptoms  is  the  notion  that  the 
touch  or  mere  thought  of  the  beloved  makes  the  small  hairs 
all  over  the  body  stand  erect.  No'  love-scene  seems  to  be 
complete  without  this  detail.  The  drama  just  referred  to,  in 
diiferent  scenes,  makes  the  hairs  on  the  cheeks,  on  the  arms, 
all  over  the  body,  rise  "  splendidly,"  the  author  says  in  one 
line.1  A  Hindoo  lover  always  has  twitching  of  the  right 
or  left  arm  or  eye  to  indicate  what  kind  of  luck  he  is  going 
to  have  ;  and  she  is  equally  favored.  Usually  the  love  is  mut- 
ual and  at  first  sight — nay,  preferably  before  first  sight.  The 
mere  hearsay  that  a  certain  man  or  maiden  is  very  beautiful 
suffices,  as  we  saw  in  the  story  of  Nala  and  Damayanti,  to 
banish  sleep  and  appetite,  and  to  make  the  lover  pale  and 
wan  and  most  wretched.  Sakuntala's  royal  lover  wastes  away 
so  rapidly  that  in  a  few  days  his  bracelet  falls  from  his  attenu- 
ated arm,  and  Sakuntala  herself  becomes  so  weak  that  she  can- 
not rise,  and  is  supposed  to  have  sunstroke  !  Malati  dwindles 

1  Our  poets  speak  of  fright  making  the  hair  stand  on  end — but  only  on  the 
head.  Can  the  alleged  Hindoo  phenomenon  he  identical  with  what  we  call  goose 
flesh — French  frisson  ?  That  would  make  it  none  the  less  artificial  as  a  symptom 
of  love.  Hertel  says,  in  his  edition  of  the  Hitopadena  (2b')  :  il  With  tho  Hindoos 
it  is  a  consequence  of  great  excitement,  joy  as  well  as  fear,  that  the  little  hairs 
on  the  body  stand  erect.  The  expression  has  become  conventional. " 


696  INDIA— DRAMAS 

until  her  form  resembles  the  moon  in  its  last  quarter  ;  her 
face  is  as  pale  as  the  moon  at  morning  dawn.  Always  both 
the  lovers,  though  he  be  a  king — as  he  generally  is — and  she 
a  goddess,  are  diffident  at  first,  fearing  failure,  even  after  the 
most  unmistakable  signs  of  fondness,  in  the  betrayal  of  which 
the  girls  are  anything  but  coy.  All  these  symptoms  the  poets 
prescribe  as  regularly  as  a  physician  makes  out  a  prescription 
for  an  apothecary. 

A  peculiar  stare — which  must  be  sidelong,  not  direct  at  the 
beloved — is  another  conventional  characteristic  of  Hindoo 
amorous  fiction.  The  gait  becomes  languid,  the  breathing 
difficult,  the  heart  stops  beating  or  is  paralyzed  with  joy  ; 
the  limbs  or  the  whole  body  wither  like  flower-stalks  after  a 
frost ;  the  mind  is  lamed,  the  memory  weakened  ;  cold  shiv- 
ers run  down  the  limbs  and  fever  shakes  the  body  ;  the  arms 
hang  limp  at  the  side,  the  breast  heaves,  words  stick  in  the 
throat ;  pastimes  no  longer  entertain  ;  the  perfumed  Malayan 
wind  crazes  the  mind  ;  the  eyelids  are  motionless,  sighs  give 
vent  to  anguish,  which  may  end  in  a  swoon,  and  if  things 
take  an  unfavorable  turn  the  thought  of  suicide  is  not  dis- 
tant. Attempts  to  cure  this  ardent  love  are  futile  ;  Madhava 
tries  snow,  and  moonlight,  and  camphor,  and  lotos  roots,  and 
pearls,  and  sandal  oil  rubbed  on  his  skin,  but  all  in  vain. 


THE    HINDOO    GOD    OF   LOVE 

Quite  as  artificial  and  unsentimental  as  the  notions  of  the 
Hindoos  concerning  the  symptoms  of  love  is  their  conception 
of  their  god  of  love,  Kama,  the  husband  of  Lust.  His  bow  is 
made  of  sugar-cane,  its  string  a  row  of  bees,  and  his  arrow- 
tips  are  red  flower-buds.  Spring  is  his  bosom  friend,  and  he 
rides  on  a  parrot  or  the  sea-monster  Makara.  He  is  also  called 
Ananga — the  bodiless — because  Siwa  once  burned  him  up  with 
the  fire  that  flashed  from  his  third  eye  for  disturbing  him  in 
his  devotions  by  awakening  in  him  love  for  Parwati.  Sakun- 
tala's  lover  wails  that  Kama's  arrows  are  "not  flowers,  but 
hard  as  diamond."  Agnimitra  declares  that  the  Creator  made 
his  beloved  "  the  poison-steeped  arrow  of  the  God  of  Love  ; " 


THE    HINDOO    GOD   OF   LOVE  697 

;ind  again,  he  says  :  "  The  softest  and  the  sharpest  things  are 
united  in  you,  0  Kama."  Urvasi's  royal  lover  complains  that 
his  "  heart  is  pierced  by  Kama's  arrow,"  and  in  Malati  and 
Madliava  we  are  told  that  "a  cruel  god  no  doubt  is  Kama  ; " 
while  No.  329  of  Hala's  love-poems  declares  :  "The  arrows 
of  Kama  are  most  diverse  in  their  effects — though  made  of 
flowers,  very  hard  ;  though  not  coming  into  direct  contact,  in- 
sufferably hot  ;  and  though  piercing,  yet  causing  delight." 

Our  familiarity  with  Greek  and  Roman  literature  has  made 
us  so  accustomed  to  the  idea  of  a  Cupid  awakening  love 
by  shooting  arrows  that  we  fail  to  realize  how  entirely  fan- 
ciful, not  to  say  whimsical,  this  conceit  is.  It  would  be 
odd,  indeed,  if  the  Hindoo  poets  had  happened  on  the  same 
fancy  as  the  Greeks  of  their  own  accord  ;  but  there  is  no  rea- 
son to  suppose  that  they  did.  Kama  is  one  of  the  later  gods 
of  the  Indian  Pantheon,  and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  the  Hindoos  borrowed  him  from  the  Greeks,  as  the  Ro- 
mans did.  In  Sakuntala  (27)  there  is  a  reference  to  the 
Greek  women  who  form  the  king's  body-guard  ;  in  Urvasi 
(70)  to  a  slave  of  Greek  descent ;  and  there  are  many  things 
in  the  Hindoo  drama  that  betray  Greek  influence. 

Besides  being  artificial  and  borrowed,  Kama  is  entirely  sen- 
sual. Kama  means  "gratification  of  the  senses,"1  and  of  all 
the  epithets  bestowed  on  their  god  of  love  by  the  Hindoos 
none  rises  distinctly  above  sensual  ideas.  Dowson  (147)  has 
collated  these  epithets  ;  they  are  :  "  the  beautiful,"  "  the  in- 
flamer."  "lustful,"  "desirous,"  "the  happy,"  "  the  gay,  or 
wanton,"  "  deluder,"  "the  lamp  of  honey,  or  of  spring/' 
"  the  bewilderer,"  "  the  crackling  fire,"  "  the  stalk  of  pas- 
sion," "  the  weapon  of  beauty,"  "the  voluptuary,"  "remem- 
brance," "  fire,"  "  the  handsome." 2 

The  same  disregard  of  sentimental,  devotional,  and  altru- 

1  Hitopadesa  (25).  This  gratification  the  Hindoos  regard  as  one  of  the  four 
great  objects  of  life,  the  other  three  being  liberty  (emancipation  of  the  soul), 
wealth,  and  the  performance  of  religious  duties. 

u  Robert  Brown  has  remarked  that  "  moral  and  intellectual  qualities  seem  to 
be  entirely  omitted  from  the  seven  points  which,  according  to  Mann,  make  a  good 
wife.  And  Ward  says  (10)  that  no  attention  is  paid  to  a  bride's  mind  or  tem- 
per, the  only  points  being  the  bride's  person,  her  family,  and  the  prospect  of 
male  otispring. 


098  INDIA— DRAMAS 

istic  elements  is  shown  in  the  Ten  Stages  of  Love-Sickness  as 
conceived  by  the  Hindoos  :  (I)  desire  ;  (2)  thinking  of  her 
(his)  beauty  ;  (3)  reminiscent  revery  ;  (4)  boasting  of  her  (his) 
excellence;  (5)  excitement;  (6)  lamentations  ;  (7)  distraction  ; 
(8)  illness  ;  (9)  insensibility  ;  (10)  death.1 

DYING   FOR   LOVE 

The  notion  that  the  fever  of  love  may  become  so  severe  as 
to  lead  to  death  plays  an  important  role  in  Hindoo  amorous 
sophistry.  "  Hindoo  casuists/'  says  Lamairesse  (151,  179), 
"  always  have  a  peremptory  reason,  in  their  own  eyes,  for 
dispensing  with  all  scruples  in  love-affairs  :  the  necessity  of 
not  dying  for  love."  "  It  is  permissible,"  says  the  author 
of  Kama  Soutra,  "  to  seduce  another  man's  wife  if  one  is  in 
danger  of  dying  from  love  for  her  ; "  upon  which  Lamairesse 
comments  : 

"  This  principle,  liberally  interpreted  by  those  interested, 
excuses  all  intrigues  ;  in  theory  it  is  capable  of  accommodat- 
ing itself  to  all  cases,  and  in  the  practice  of  the  Hindoos  it 
does  thus  accommodate  itself.  It  is  based  on  the  belief  that 
the  souls  of  men  who  die  of  ungratified  desires  flit  about  a  long 
time  as  manes  before  transmigrating." 

Thus  did  the  wily  priests  invoke  the  aid  even  of  supersti- 
tion to  foster  that  national  licentiousness  by  which  they 
themselves  profited  most.  Small  wonder  that  the  Hitopadesa 
declared  (92)  that  "  there  is  perhaps  in  all  the  world  not  a 
man  who  covets  not  his  neighbor's  wife  ; "  or  that  the  same 
collection  of  wise  stories  and  maxims  should  take  an  equally 
low  view  of  feminine  morals  (39,  40,  41,  54,  88) ;  e.g.  (in 
substance) :  "  Then  only  is  a  wife  faithful  to  her  husband, 
when  no  other  man  covets  her."  "  Seek  chastity  in  those 
women  only  who  have  no  opportunity  to  meet  a  lover."  "  A 

1  This  is  the  list,  as  given  by  the  eminent  Sanscrit  scholar,  Professor  Albrecht 
Weber  in  the  Abhandlungen  fur  die  Kunde  das  Abendlandes,  Vol.  V.,  135.  Bur- 
ton, in  his  original  edition  of  the  Arabian  Nights  (III.,  36),  gives  the  stages 
thus  :  love  of  the  eyes ;  attraction  of  the  manos  or  mind ;  birth  of  desire ;  loss  of 
sleep  ;  loss  of  flesh  ;  indifference  to  objects  of  sense  ;  loss  of  shame  ;  distraction 
of  thought ;  loss  of  consciousness  ;  death.  Cf.  Lamairesse,  p.  179. 


WHAT   HINDOO    POETS   ADMIRE   IN   WOMEN    699 

woman's  lust  can  no  more  be  satisfied  than  a  fire's  greed  for 
wood,  the  ocean's  thirst  for  rivers,  death's  desire  for  victims." 
Another  verse  in  the  Hitopadesa  (13)  declares  frankly  that  of 
the  six  good  things  in  the  world  two  of  them  are  a  caress- 
ing wife  and  a  devoted  sweetheart  beside  her — upon  which 
the  editor,  Johannes  Hertel,  comments  :  "  To  a  Hindoo  there 
is  nothing  objectionable  in  such  a  sentiment." 

WHAT   HINDOO    POETS    ADMIRE   IN   WOMEN 

The  Hindoo's  inability  to  rise  above  sensuality  also  mani- 
fests itself  in  his  admiration  of  personal  beauty,  which  is 
purely  carnal.  No.  217  of  Hala's  anthology  declares  :  f(  Her 
face  resembles  the  moon,  the  juice  of  her  mouth  nectar  ;  but 
wherewith  shall  I  compare  (my  delight)  when  I  seize  her, 
amid  violent  struggles,  by  the  head  and  kiss  her?"  Apart 
from  such  grotesque  comparisons  of  the  face  to  the  moon,  or 
of  the  teeth  to  the  lotos,  there  is  nothing  in  the  amorous 
hyperbole  of  Hindoo  poets  that  rises  above  the  voluptuous 
into  the  neighborhood  of  esthetic  admiration.  Hindoo 
statues  embodying  the  poets'  ideal  of  women's  waists  so 
narrow  that  they  can  be  spanned  by  the  hand,  show  how  in- 
finitely inferior  the  Hindoos  were  to  the  Greeks  in  their  ap- 
preciation of  human  beauty.  The  Hindoo  poet's  ideal  of 
feminine  beauty  is  a  wasp-waist  and  grossly  exaggerated  bust 
and  hips.  Bhavabhuti  allows  his  heroine  Malati  to  be  thus 
addressed  (by  a  girl!):  "  The  wind,  sandal-cool,  refreshes 
your  moon-face,  in  which  nectar-like  drops  of  perspiration 
appear  from  your  walking,  during  which  you  lifted  your  feet 
but  slowly,  as  they  wavered  under  the  weight  of  your  thighs, 
which  are  strong  as  those  of  an  elephant."  Usually,  of 
course,  these  grotesquely  coarse  compliments  are  paid  by  the 
enamored  men.  Kalidasa  makes  King  Pururavas,  crazed  by 
the  loss  of  Urvasi,  exclaim  :  "  Have  you  seen  the  divine 
beauty,  who  is  compelled  by  the  weight  of  her  hips  to  walk 
slowly,  and  who  never  sees  the  flight  of  youth,  whose  bosom 
is  high  and  swelling,  whose  gait  is  as  the  swan's?"  In 
another  place  he  refers  to  her  footsteps  "  pressed  in  deeper 


700  INDIA— DRAMAS 

behind  by  the  weight  of  the  beloved's  hips/'  Satyavant  has 
no  other  epithet  for  Savitri  than  "beautiful-hipped."  It  is 
the  same  with  Sakuntala's  lover  (who  has  been  held  up  as  an 
ancient  embodiment  of  modern  ethereal  sentiment).  What 
does  he  admire  in  Sakuntala  ?  "  Here/'  he  says,  "  in  the 
yellow  sand  are  a  number  of  fresh  footsteps ;  they  are  higher 
in  front,  but  depressed  behind  by  the  weight  of  her  hips." 
"How  slow  was  her  gait — and  naturally  so,  considering  the 
weight  of  her  hips."  Compare  also  the  poet's  remarks  on  her 
bodily  charms  when  the  king  first  sees  her.1  Among  all  of  the 
king's  hyperbolic  compliments  and  remarks  there  is  not  one 
that  shows  him  to  be  fascinated  by  anything  but  the  purely 
bodily  charms  of  the  young  girl,  charms  of  a  coarse,  voluptu- 
ous kind,  calculated  to  increase  Ms  pleasure  should  he  suc- 
ceed in  winning  her,  while  there  is  not  a  trace  of  a  desire  on 
his  part  to  make  her  happy.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  Sakun- 
tala's symptoms  rising  above  selfish  distress  at  her  uncertainty, 
or  selfish  longing  to  possess  her  lover.  In  a  word,  there  is  no 
romantic  love,  in  our  sense  of  the  word,  in  the  dramas  of  the 
most  romantic  poet  of  the  most  romantic  nation  of  antiquity.2 

1  Preferably  in  Boehtlingk's  literal  version,  which  I  have  followed  whenever 
Kellner  idealizes.  In  this  case  Kellner  speaks  of  covering  l '  den  Umf ang  des 
Briistepaars,"  while  Boethlingk  has  ll  das  starke  Briistepaar,"  which  especially 
arouse  the  king's  "  love." 

8  It  would  hardly  be  surprising  if  Kalidasa  had  had  some  conception  of  true 
love  sentiment,  for  not  onlv  did  he  possess  a  delicate  poetic  fancy,  but  he  lived 
at  a  time  when  tidings  of  the  chivalrous  treatment  and  adoration  of  women 
might  have  come  to  him  from  Arabia  or  from  Europe.  The  tradition  that  he 
flourished  as  early  as  the  first  century  of  our  era  was  demolished  by  Professor 
Weber  (Ind.  Lit.  tfe.s.,  317).  Professor  Max  Mailer  (91)  found  no  reason  to 
place  him  earlier  than  our  sixth  century ;  and  more  recent  evidence  indicates 
that  he  lived  as  late  as  the  eleventh.  Yet  he  had  no  conception  of  supersens"al 
love  ;  marriage  was  to  him,  as  to  all  Hindoos,  a  union  of  bodies,  not  of  souls. 
He  had  not  learned  from  the  Arabs  (like  the  Persian  poet  Saadi,  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  whom  1  referred  to  on  p.  199)  that  the  only  test  of  true  love  is 
B»lf -sacrifice.  It  is  true  that  Bhavabhuti,  the  Hindoo  poet,  who  is  believed  to 
have  lived  at  the  end  of  our  seventh  cenbury,  makes  one  of  the  lovers  in  ^}fnftifi- 
and  Jkfadhava  slay  a  tiger  and  save  his  beloved's  life  ;  but  that  is  also  a  case  of 
self-defence.  The  other  lover — the  "hero  "  of  the  drama — faints  when  he  sees 
his  friend  in  danger  !  Generally  speaking,  there  is  a  peculiar  effeminacy,  a  lack 
of  true  manliness,  about  Hindoo  lovers.  They  are  always  moping,  whining, 
fainting  ;  the  kings — the  typical  lovers — habitually  neglect  the  affairs  of  state  to 
lead  a  life  of  voluptuous  indulgence.  Hindoo  sculpture  emphasizes  the  same 
trait:  il  Even  in  the  conception  of  male  figures,"  says  L'ibke  (100),  ll  there  is  a 
touch  of  this  womanly  softness;  "  there  is  "a  lack  of  an  energetic  life,  of  a 
rirm  contexture  of  bone  and  muscle."  It  is  not  of  such  enervated  stuff  that  true 
lovers  are  made. 


THE   OLD   STORY   OF   SELFISHNESS  701 


THE    OLD    STORY    OF   SELFISHNESS 

It  might  be  maintained  that  the  symptoms  of  true  affec- 
tion— altruistic  devotion  to  the  verge  of  self-sacrifice — are 
revealed,  at  any  rate,  in  the  conjugal  love  of  Savitri  and  of 
Damayanti.  Savitri  follows  the  god  of  death  as  he  carries 
away  her  husband's  spirit,  and  by  her  devotion  and  entreaties 
persuades  Yama  to  restore  him  to  life  ;  while  Damayanti 
(whose  story  we  did  not  finish)  follows  her  husband,  after 
he  has  gambled  away  all  his  kingdom,  into  the  forest  to  suffer 
with  him.  One  night,  while  she  sleeps,  he  steals  half  of  her 
only  garment  and  deserts  her.  Left  alone  in  the  terrible 
forest  with  tigers  and  snakes*  she  sobs  aloud  and  repeatedly 
faints  away  from  fear.  "  Yet  I  do  not  weep  for  myself,"  she 
exclaims  ;  "my  only  thought  is,  how  will  you  fare,  my  royal 
master,  being  left  thus  all  alone  ?  "  She  j$  seized  by  a  huge 
snake,  which  coils  its  body  around  her  ;  yet  "even  in  this 
situation  she  thinks  not  so  much  of  herself  as  she  bewails  the 
fate  of  the  king."  A  hunter  saves  her  and  proceeds  to  make 
improper  advances,  but  she,  faithful  to  her  lord,  curses  the 
hunter  and  he  falls  dead  before  her.  Then  she  resumes  her 
solitary  roaming  in  the  gloomy  forest,  "distressed  by  yrirf 
for  her  husband's  fate  "  unmindful  of  his  cruelty,  or  of  her 
own  sad  plight. 

It  is  needless  to  continue  the  tale  ;  the  reader  cannot  be  so 
obtuse  as  not  to  notice  the  moral  of  it.  The  stories  of  Savitri 
and  of  Damayanti,  far  from  exemplifying  Hindoo  conjugal 
devotion,  simply  afford  fresh  proof  of  the  hoggish  selfishness 
of  the  male  Hindoo.  They  are  intended  to  be  object-lessons 
to  wives,  teaching  them — like  the  laws  of  Manu  and  the 
custom  of  widow  burning — that  they  do  not  exist  for  their 
own  sakes,  but  for  their  husbands.  Reading  the  stories  in  the 
light  of  this  remark,  we  cannot  fail  to  note  everywhere  the 
subtle  craft  of  the  sly  men  who  invented  them.  If  further 
evidence  were  needed  to  sustain  rny  view  it  would  be  found 
in  the  fact  related  by  F.  Reuleaux,  that  to  this  day  the  priests 
arrange  an  annual  "  prayer-festival "  of  Hindoo  women  at 
which  the  wife  must  in  every  way  show  her  subjection  to  her 


702  INDIA— DRAMAS 

husband  and  master.  She  must  wash  his  feet,  dry  them,  put 
a  wreath  around  his  neck,  and  bring  offerings  to  the  gods, 
praying  that  he  may  prosper  and  live  long.  Then  follows  a 
meal  for  which  she  has  prepared  all  Ms  favorite  dishes.  And 
as  a  climax,  the  story  of  Savitri  is  read,  a  story  in  which  the 
wife  lives  only  for  the  husband,  while  he,  as  he  rudely  tells 
her — after  all  her  devotion — lives  only  for  his  parents  ! 

If  these  stories  were  anything  else  than  slyly  planned  ob- 
ject-lessons calculated  to  impress  and  subjugate  the  women, 
why  is  it  that  the  husband  is  never  chosen  to  act  the  self- 
sacrificing  part  ?  He  does,  indeed,  sometimes  indulge  in 
frantic  outbursts  of  grief  and  maudlin  sentimentality,  but 
that  is  because  he  has  lost  the  young  woman  who  pleased  his 
senses.  There  is  no  sign  of  soul-love  here  ;  the  husband  never 
dreams  of  devoting  his  life  to  her,  of  sacrificing  it  for  her  sake, 
as  she  is  constantly  exhorted  to  do  for  his  sake.  In  a  word, 
masculine  selfishness  is  the  keynote  of  Hindoo  life.  "  When 
in  danger,  never  hesitate  to  sacrifice  your  goods  and  your  wife 
to  save  your  life,"  we  read  in  the  Hitopadesa  (25) ;  and  No. 
4112  of  Boehtlingk's  Hindu  Maxims  declares  bluntly  that  a 
wife  exists  for  the  purpose  of  bearing  sons,  and  a  son  for  the 
purpose  of  offering  sacrifices  after  his  father's  death.  There 
we  have  masculine  selfishness  in  a  nutshell.  Another  maxim 
declares  that  a  wife  can  atone  for  her  lack  or  loss  of  beauty 
by  faithful  subjection  to  her  husband.  And  in  return  for 
all  the  devotion  expected  of  her  she  is  utterly  despised — con- 
sidered unworthy  of  an  education,  unfit  even  to  profess  vir- 
ginity— in  a  word,  looked  on  "as  scarcely  forming  a  part  of 
the  human  species."  In  the  most  important  event  in  her  life 
— marriage — her  choice  is  never  consulted.  The  matter  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  left  to  the  family  barber,  or  to  the  parents, 
to  whom  questions  of  caste  and  wealth  are  of  infinitely  more 
importance  than  personal  preferences.  When  those  matters 
are  arranged  the  man  satisfies  himself  concerning  the  inclina- 
tions of  the  chosen  girl's  kindred,  and  when  assured  that  he 
will  not  "  suffer  the  affront  of  a  refusal "  from  them  he  pro- 
ceeds with  the  offer  and  the  bargaining.  "  To  marry  or  to 
buy  a  girl  are  synonymous  terms  in  this  country,"  says  Du- 


BAYADERES  AND  PRINCESSES  AS  HEROINES    703 

bois  (I.,   198)  ;  and  he  proceeds  to  give  an  account  of  the 
bargaining  and  the  disgraceful  quarrels  this  leads  to. 


BAYADERES   AND   PRINCESSES   AS  HEROINES 

Under  such  circumstances  the  Hindoo  playwrights  must 
have  found  themselves  in  a  curious  dilemma.  They  were 
sufficiently  versed  in  the  poetic  art  to  build  up  a  plot ;  but 
what  chance  for  an  amorous  plot  was  there  in  a  country 
where  there  was  no  courtship,  where  women  were  sold,  ig- 
nored, maltreated,  and  despised  ?  Perforce  the  poets  had  to 
neglect  realism,  give  up  all  idea  of  mirroring  respectable  do- 
mestic life,  and  take  refuge  in  the  realms  of  tradition,  fancy, 
or  liaisons.  It  is  interesting  to  note  how  they  got  around  the 
difficulty.  They  either  made  their  heroines  bayaderes,  or  prin- 
cesses, or  girls  willing  to  be  married  in  a  way  allowing  them 
their  own  choice,  but  not  reputed  respectable.  Bayaderes, 
though  not  permitted  to  marry,  were  at  liberty  to  choose  their 
temporary  companions.  Cudraka  indulges  in  the  poetic 
license  of  making  Vasantasena  superior  to  other  bayaderes 
and  rewarding  her  in  the  end  by  a  "regular  marriage  as  the 
hero's  wife  number  two.  By  way  of  securing  variety,  apsa- 
ras,  or  celestial  bayaderes,  were  brought  on  the  scene,  as  in 
Kalidasa's  Urvasi,  permitting  the  poet  to  indulge  in  still 
bolder  nights  of  fancy.  Princesses,  again,  were  favorite  hero- 
ines, for  various  reasons,  one  of  which  was  the  tradition  con- 
cerning the  custom  called  Svayamvara  or  "  Maiden's  Choice  " 
— a  princess  being  "permitted,"  after  a  tournament,  to 
"  choose  "  the  victor.  The  story  of  Nala  and  Damayanti  has 
made  us  familiar  with  a  similar  meeting  of  kings,  at  which 
the  princess  chooses  the  lover  she  has  determined  on  before- 
hand, though  she  has  never  seen  him.  Apart  from  the  fan- 
tasticality of  this  episode,  it  is  obvious  that  even  if  the  Svay- 
amvara was  once  a  custom  in  royal  circles  it  did  not  really 
insure  to  the  princesses  free  choice  of  a  rational  kind.  Brought 
up  in  strict  seclusion,  a  king's  daughter  could  never  have  seen 
any  of  the  men  competing  for  her.  The  victor  might  be  the 
least  sympathetic  to  her  of  all,  and  even  if  she  had  a  large 


704  INDIA— DRAMAS 

number  of  suitors  to  choose  from,  her  selection  could  not  be 
based  on  anything  but  the  momentary  and  superficial  judg- 
ment of  the  eye.  But  for  dramatic  purposes  the  Svayamvara 
was  useful. 


VOLUNTARY    UNIONS   NOT   RESPECTABLE 

In  Sakuntala,  Kalidasa  resorts  to  the  third  of  the  expe- 
dients I  have  mentioned.  The  king  weds  the  girl  whom  he 
finds  in  the  grove  of  the  saints  in  accordance  with  a  form 
which  was  not  regarded  as  respectable — marriage  based  on 
mutual  inclination,  without  the  knowledge  of  the  parents. 
The  laws  of  Mann  (III.,  20-34)  recognized  eight  kinds  of  mar- 
riage :  (1)  gift  of  a  daughter  to  a  man  learned  in  the  Vedas  , 
(2)  gift  of  a  daughter  to  a  priest ;  (3)  gift  of  a  daughter  in 
return  for  presents  of  cows,  etc.  ;  (4)  gift  of  a  daughter,  with 
a  dress.  In  these  four  the  father  gives  away  his  daughter  as 
he  chooses.  In  (5)  the  groom  buys  the  girl  with  presents  to 
her  kinsmen  or  herself  ;  (6)  is  voluntary  union  ;  (7)  forcible 
abduction  (in  war) ;  (8)  rape  of  a  girl  asleep,  or  drunk,  or  im- 
becile. In  other  words,  of  the  eight  kinds  of  marriage  recog- 
nized by  Hindoo  law  and  custom  only  one  is  based  on  free 
choice,  and  of  that  Manu  says  :  "  The  voluntary  connection 
of  a  maiden  and  a  man  is  to  be  known  as  a  Gandharva  union, 
which  arises  from  lust."  It  is  classed  among  the  blamable 
marriages.  Even  this  appears  not  to  have  been  a  legal  form 
before  Manu.  It  is  blamable  because  contracted  without  the 
consent  or  knowledge  of  the  parents,  and  because,  unless  the 
sacred  fire  has  been  obtained  from  a  Brahman  to  sanctify  it, 
such  a  marriage  is  merely  a  temporary  union.  Gandharvas, 
after  whom  it  is  named,  are  singers  and  other  musicians  in 
Indra's  heaven,  who,  like  the  apsaras,  enter  into  unions  that 
are  not  intended  to  be  enduring,  but  are  dissoluble  at  will. 
Such  marriages  (liaisons  we  call  them)  are  frequently  men- 
tioned in  Hindoo  literature  (e.g.,  Hitopadesa,  p.  85).  Malati 
(30)  chides  her  friend  for  advising  her  to  make  a  secret  mar- 
riage, and  later  on  exclaims  (75)  :  "  I  am  lost  !  What  a  girl 
must  not  do,  my  friend  counsels  me."  The  orthodox  view  is 

ft 


VOLUNTARY    UNIONS    NOT    RESPECTABLE     705 

unfolded  by  the  Buddhist  nun  Kamandaki  (33)  :  "  We  hear 
of  Duschyanta  loving  Sakuntala,  of  Pururavas  loving  Urvasi 
.  .  .  but  these  cases  look  like  arbitrary  action  and  cannot 
be  commended  as  models."  In  Sakuntala,  too,  the  king  feels 
it  incumbent  dfi  him  to  apologize  to  the  girl  he  covets,  when 
she  bids  him  not  to  transgress  the  laws  of  propriety,  by  ex- 
claiming that  many  other  girls  have  thus  been  taken  by  kings 
without  incurring  parental  disapproval.  The  directions  for- 
th is  form  of  courtship  given  in  the  Kama  Soutra  indicate 
that  Sakuntala  had  every  reason  to  appeal  to  the  rules  of  pro- 
priety, social  and  moral.  Kalidasa  spares  us  the  details. 

The  king's  desertion  of  Sakuntala  after  he  had  obtained  his 
self-indulgent  object  was  quite  in  accordance  with  the  spirit 
of  a  Gandharva  marriage.  Kalidasa,  for  dramatic  purposes, 
makes  it  a  result  of  a  saint's  curse,  which  enables  him  to  con- 
tinue his  story  interestingly.  A  poet  has  a  right  to  such 
license,  even  though  it  takes  him  out  of  the  realm  of  realism. 
Hindoo  poets,  like  others,  know  how  to  rise  above  sordid 
reality  into  a  more  ideal  sphere,  and  for  this  reason,  even 
if  we  had  found  in  the  dramas  of  India  a  portrayal  of  true 
love,  it  would  not  prove  that  it  existed  outside  of  a  poet's 
glowing  and  prophetic  fancy.  There  is  a  Hindoo  saying,  "  Do 
not  strike  a  woman,  even  with  a  flower  ;  "  but  we  have  seen 
that  these  Hindoos  often  do  physically  abuse  their  wives  most 
cruelly,  besides  subjecting  them  to  indescribable  mental  an- 
guish, and  mental  anguish  is  much  more  painful  and  more 
prolonged  than  bodily  torture.  Fine  words  do  not  make  fine 
feelings.  From  this  point  of  view  Dalton  was  perhaps  right 
when  he  asserted  that  the  wild  tribes  of  India  come  closer  to 
us  in  their  love-affairs  than  the  more  cultured  Hindoos,  with 
their  "  un romantic  heart-schooling."  We  have  seen  that 
Albrecht  Weber's  high  estimate  of  the  Hindoo's  romantic  sen- 
timent does  not  bear  the  test  of  a  close  psychological  analysis. 
The  Hindoo  may  have  fewer  uncultivated  traits  of  emotion  than 
the  wild  tribesmen,  but  they  are  in  the  same  field.  Hindoo 
civilization  rose  to  splendid  heights,  in  some  respects,  and 
even  the  great  moral  principle  of  altruism  was  cultivated  ; 
but  it  was  not  applied  to  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  and 


706  INDIA— DRAMAS       . 

thus  we  see  once  more  that  the  refinement  of  the  affections — 
especially  the  sexual  affections — comes  last  in  the  evolution 
of  civilization.  Masculine  selfishness  and  sensuality  have  pre- 
vented the  Hindoo  from  entering  the  Elysian  fields  of  roman- 
tic love.  He  has  always  allowed,  and  still  allows,  the  minds 
of  women  to  lie  fallow,  being  contented  with  their  bodily 
charms,  and  unaware  that  the  most  delightful  of  all  sexual 
differences  are  those  of  mind  and  character.  To  quote  once 
more  the  Abbe  Dubois  (I.,  271),  the  most  minute  and  philo 
sophic  observer  of  Indian  manners  and  morals  : 

"  The  Hindoos  are  nurtured  in  the  belief  that  there  can  be 
nothing  disinterested  or  innocent  in  the  intercourse  between 
a  man  and  a  woman  ;  and  however  Platonic  the  attachment 
might  be  between  two  persons  of  different  sex,  it  would  be 
infallibly  set  down  to  sensual  love." 


DOES  THE  BIBLE  IGNOEE  EOMAOTIC  LOVE? 

MY  assertion  that  there  are  no  cases  of  romantic  love  re- 
corded in  the  Bible  naturally  aroused  opposition,  and  not  a 
few  critics  lifted  up  their  voices  in  loud  protest  against  such 
ignorant  audacity.  The  case  for  the  defence  was  well 
summed  up  in  the  Rochester  Post-Express  : 

"The  ordinary  reader  will  find  many  love-stories  in  the 
Scriptures.  What  are  we  to  think,  for  instance,  of  this 
passage  from  the  twenty-ninth  chapter  of  Genesis  :  ( And 
Laban  had  two  daughters  :  the  name  of  the  elder  was  Leah, 
and  the  name  of  the  younger  was  Rachel.  Leah  was  tender- 
eyed  ;  but  Rachel  was  beautiful  and  well-favored.  And 
Jacob  loved  Rachel ;  and  said,  I  will  serve  thee  seven  years 
for  Rachel  thy  younger  daughter.  And  Laban  said,  It  is 
better  that  I  give  her  to  thee,  than  that  I  should  give  her  to 
another  man  :  abide  with  me.  And  Jacob  served  seven  years 
for  Rachel ;  and  they  seemed  unto  him  but  a  few  days,  for 
the  love  he  had  for  her/  It  may  be  said  that  after  marriage 
Jacob's  love  was  not  of  the  modern  conjugal  type  ;  but  cer- 
tainly his  pre-matrimonial  passion  was  self-sacrificing,  en- 
during, and  hopeful  enough  for  a  mediaeval  romance.  The 
courtship  of  Ruth  and  Boaz  is  a  bold  and  pretty  love-story, 
which  details  the  scheme  of  an  old  widow  and  a  young  widow 
for  the  capture  of  a  wealthy  kinsman.  The  Song  of  Solomon 
is,  on  the  surface,  a  wonderful  love-poem.  But  it  is  needless 
to  multiply  illustrations  from  this  source." 

A  Chicago  critic  declared  that  it  would  be  easy  to  show 
that  from  the  moment  when  Adam  said,  "  This  is  now 
bone  of  my  bones,  and  flesh  of  my  flesh  ;  she  shall  be  called 
woman,  because  she  was  taken  out  of  man.  Therefore  shall 
a  man  leave  his  father  and  his  mother,  and  cleave  unto  his 
wife  :  and  they  shall  be  one  flesh  " — from  that  moment  unto 
this  day  "  that  which  it  pleases  our  author  to  call  romantic 
love  has  been  substantially  one  and  the  same  thing. 

707 


708  DOES   THE    BIBLE    IGNORE    LOVE? 

Has  this  writer  never  heard  of  Isaac  and  Rebekah  ;  of  Jacob 
and  Rachel?"  A  Philadelphia  reviewer  doubted  whether  I 
believed  in  my  own  theory  because  I  ignored  in  my  chapter 
on  love  among  the  Hebrews  "  the  story  of  Jacob  and  Rachel 
and  other  similar  instances  of  what  deserves  to  be  called  ro- 
mantic love  among  the  Hebrews."  Professor  II.  C.  Trum- 
bull  emphatically  repudiates  my  theory  in  his  Studies  in 
Oriental  Social  Life  (62-63) ;  proceeding  : 

"  Yet  in  the  very  first  book  of  the  Old  Testament  narrative 
there  appears  the  story  of  young  Jacob's  romantic  love  for 
Ktichel,  a  love  which  was  inspired  by  their  first  meeting 
[Gen.  29  : 10-18]  and  which  was  a  fresh  and  tender  memory 
in  the  patriarch  Jacob's  mind  when  long  years  after  he  had 
buried  her  in  Canaan  [Gen.  35  : 16-20]  he  was  on  his  denth- 
bed  in  Egypt  [Gen.  48  :  1-7],,  In  all  the  literature  of  romantic 
love  in  all  the  ages  there  can  be  found  no  more  touching  ex- 
hibit of  the  true-hearted  fidelity  of  a  romantic  lover  than  that 
which  is  given  of  Jacob  in  the  words  :  '  And  Jacob  served 
seven  years  for  Rachel  ;  and  they  seemed  unto  him  but  a  few 
days  for  the  love  he  had  to  her/  And  the  entire  story  con- 
firms the  abiding  force  of  that  sentiment.  There  are,  cer- 
tainly, gleams  of  romantic  love  from  out  of  the  clouds  of  de- 
graded human  passion  in  the  ancient  East,  in  the  Bible 
stories  of  Shechem  and  Dinah  [Gen.  34  :  1-31],  of  Samson  and 
the  damsel  of  Timnath  [Judg.  14:1-3],  of  David  and 
Abigail  [I.  Sam.  25  :  1-42],  of  Adonijah  and  Abishag 
[I.  Kings  2  :  13-17],  and  other  men  and  women  of  whom  the 
Scriptures  tell  us." 

Cenac  Moncaut,  who  begins  his  Histoire  de  V Amour  dans 
VAntiquite  with  Adam  and  Eve,  declares  (28-31)  that  the 
episode  of  Jacob  and  Rachel  marks  the  birth  of  perfect  love 
in  the  world,  the  beginning  of  its  triumph,  followed,  however, 
by  relapses  in  days  of  darkness  and  degradation.  If  all  these 
writers  are  correct  then  my  theory  falls  to  the  ground  and 
romantic  love  must  be  conceded  to  be  at  least  four  thousand 
years  old,  instead  of  less  than  one  thousand.  But  let  us  look 
at  the  facts  in  detail  and  see  whether  there  is  really  no  differ- 
ence between  ancient  Hebrew  and  modern  Christian  love. 

The  Rev.  Stopford  Brooke  has  remarked  :  "  Abraham,  Isaac, 
Jacob,  and  Joseph  may  have  existed  as  real  men,  and  played 


THE   STORY    OF   JACOB   AND   RACHEL        709 

their  part  in  the  founding  of  the  Jewish  race,  but  their  stories, 
as  we  have  them,  are  as  entirely  legendary  as  those  of  Arthur 
or  Siegfried,  of  Agamemnon  or  Charlemagne."  This  consid- 
eration would  bring  the  date  of  the  story  from  the  time  when 
Jacob  is  supposed  to  have  lived  down  to  the  much  later  time 
when  the  legend  was  elaborated.  I  have  no  desire,  however, 
to  seek  refuge  behind  such  chronological  uncertainties,  nor 
to  reassert  that  my  theory  is  a  question  of  evolution  rather 
than  of  dates,  and  that,  therefore,  if  Jacob  and  Rachel,  dur- 
ing their  prolonged  courtship,  had  the  qualities  of  mind  and 
character  to  feel  the  exalted  sentiment  of  romantic  love,  we 
might  concede  in  their  case  an  exception  which,  by  its  strik- 
ing isolation,  would  only  prove  the '  rule.  I  need  no  such 
refuge,  for  I  can  see  no  reason  whatever  for  accepting  the 
story  of  Jacob  and  Rachel  as  an  exceptional  instance  of 
romantic  love. 


THE   STORY   OF   JACOB   AND    RACHEL 

Nothing  could  be  more  charmingly  poetic  than  this  story 
as  told  by  the  old  Hebrew  chronicler.  The  language  is  so 
simple  yet  so  pictorial  that  we  fancy  we  can  actually  see 
Jacob  as  he  accosts  the  shepherds  at  the  well  to  ask  after  his 
uncle  Laban,  and  they  reply  "  Behold,  Rachel  his  daughter 
cometh  with  the  sheep."  We  see  him  as  he  rolls  the  stone 
from  the  well's  mouth  and  waters  his  uncle's  flocks  ;  we  see 
him  as  he  kisses  Rachel  and  lifts  up  his  voice  and  weeps.  He 
kisses  her  of  course  by  right  of  being  a  relative,  and  not  as  a 
lover ;  for  we  cannot  suppose  that  even  an  Oriental  shepherd 
girl  could  have  been  so  devoid  of  maidenly  prudence  and  coy- 
ness as  to  give  a  love-kiss  to  a  stranger  at  their  first  meeting. 
Though  apparently  her  cousin  (Gen.  28  :  2  ;  29  : 10),  Jacob  tells 
her  he  is  her  uncle  ;  "  and  Jacob  told  Rachel  that  he  was  her 
father's  brother."1  There  was  the  less  impropriety  in  his 

1  An  explanation  of  this  discrepancy  may  be  found  in  A.  K.  Fiske's  suggestion 
(191)  that  there  is  a  double  source  for  this  story  The  reader  will  please  bear  in 
mind  that  all  my  quotations  are  from  the  revised  version  of  the  Bible.  I  do  not 
believe  in  retaining  inaccurate  translations  simply  because  they  were  made  long 
ago. 


710  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 

kissing  her,  as  she  was  probably  a  girl  of  fifteen  or  sixteen 
and  he  old  enough  to  be  her  grandfather,  or  even  great-grand- 
father, his  age  at  the  time  of  meeting  her  being  seventy-seven.1 
But  as  men  are  reported  to  have  aged  slowly  in  those  days, 
this  did  not  prevent  him  from  desiring  to  marry  Eachel,  for 
whose  sake  he  was  willing  to  serve  her  father.  Strange  to 
say,  the  words  "  And  Jacob  served  seven  years  for  Rachel " 
have  been  accepted  as  proof  of  self-sacrifice  by  several  writers, 
including  Dr.  Abel,  who  cites  those  words  as  indicating  that 
the  ancient  Hebrews  knew  "  the  devotion  of  love,  which 
gladly  serves  the  beloved  and  shuns  no  toil  in  her  behalf."  In 
reality  Jacob's  seven  years  of  service  have  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  self-sacrifice;  He  did  not  "  serve  his  beloved  " 
but  her  father  ;  did  not  toil  "  in  her  behalf  "  but  on  his  own 
behalf.  He  was  simply  doing  that  very  unromantic  thing, 
paying  for  his  wife  by  working  a  stipulated  time  for  her 
father,  in  accordance  with  a  custom  prevalent  among  primi- 
tive peoples  the  world  over.  Our  text  is  very  explicit  on  the 
subject;  after  Jacob  had  been  with  his  relative  a  month 
Laban  had  said  unto  him  :  "  Because  thou  art  my  brother 
shouldst  thou  therefore  serve  me  for  naught  ?  tell  me  what 
shall  thy  wages  be  ?  "  And  Jacob  had  chosen  Rachel  for  his 
wages.  Rachel  and  Leah  themselves  quite  understood  the 
commercial  nature  of  the  matrimonial  arrangement ;  for 
when,  years  afterward,  they  are  prepared  to  leave  their  father 
they  say  :  "  Is  there  yet  any  portion  or  inheritance  for  us  in 
our  father's  house  ?  Are  we  not  counted  of  him  strangers  ? 
for  he  hath  sold  us,  and,  hath  also  quite  devoured  the  price 
paid  for  us/' 

Instead  of  the  sentimental  self-sacrifice  of  a  devoted  lover 
for  his  mistress  we  have  here,  therefore,  simply  an  example  of 
a  prosaic,  mercenary  marriage  custom  familiar  to  all  students 
of  anthropology.  But  how  about  the  second  half  of  that  sen- 
tence, which  declares  that  Jacob's  seven  years  of  service 

1  McClintock  and  Strong's  Encyclop.  of  Biblical  Literature  says:  "  It  must 
be  borne  in  mind  that  Jacob  himself  had  now  reached  the  mature  age  of  seventy- 
seven  years,  as  appears  from  a  comparison  of  Joseph's  age  .  .  .  with  Jacob's." 
That  Rachel  was  not  much  over  fifteen  may  be  assumed  because  among  Orien- 
tal nomadic  races  shepherd  girls  are  very  seldom  unmarried  after  that  age,  or 
even  an  earlier  age,  for  obvious  reasons. 


THE   STORY   OF   JACOB   AND   RACHEL        711 

"  seemed  to  him  but  a  few  days  for  the  love  he  had  for  her  ?  " 
Is  not  this  the  language  of  an  expert  in  love  ?  Many  of  my 
critics,  to  my  surprise,  seemed  to  think  so,  but  I  am  con- 
vinced that  none  of  them  can  have  ever  been  in  love  or  they 
would  have  known  that  a  lover  is  so  impatient  and  eager  to 
call  his  beloved  irrevocably  his  own,  so  afraid  that  someone 
else  might  steal  away  her  affection  from  him,  that  Jacob's 
seven  years,  instead  of  shrinking  to  a  few  days,  would  have 
seemed  to  him  like  seven  times  seven  years. 

A  minute  examination  of  the  story  of  Jacob  and  Rachel 
thus  reveals  world-wide  differences  between  the  ancient  He- 
brew and  the  modern  Christian  conceptions  of  love,  corre- 
sponding, we  have  no  reason  to  doubt,  to  differences  in  actual 
feeling.  And  as  we  proceed,  these  differences  become  more 
and  more  striking  : 

"  And  Jacob  said  unto  Laban,  Give  me  my  wife,  for  my 
days  are  fulfilled,  that  I  may  go  in  unto  her.  And  Laban 
gathered  together  all  the  men  of  the  place,  and  made  a  feast. 
And  it  came  to  pass  in  the  evening,  that  he  took  Leah  his 
daughter,  and  brought  her  to  him  ;  and  he  went  in  unto  her. 
.  .  .  And  it  came  to  pass,  in  the  morning  that,  behold,  it 
was  Leah  :  and  he  said  to  Laban,  What  is  this  thou  has  done 
unto  me  ?  Did  not  I  serve  with  thee  for  Rachel  ?  Wherefore 
then  hast  thou  beguiled  me  ?  And  Laban  said,  It  is  not  so 
done  in  our  place,  to  give  the  younger  before  the  first-born. 
Fulfil  the  week  of  this  one,  and  we  will  give  thee  the  other 
also  for  the  service  which  thou  shalt  serve  with  me  yet  seven 
other  years.  And  Jacob  did  so,  and  fulfilled  her  week  ;  and 
he  gave  him  Rachel  his  daughter  to  wife."  • 

Surely  it  would  be  difficult  to  condense  into  so  few  lines 
more  facts  and  conditions  abhorrent  to  the  Christian  concep- 
tion of  the  sanctity  of  love  than  is  done  in  this  passage.  Can 
anyone  deny  that  in  a  modern  Christian  country  Laban's 
breach  of  contract  with  Jacob,  his  fraudulent  substitution  of 
the  wrong  daughter,  and  Jacob's  meek  acceptance  of  two 
wives  in  eight  days  would  not  only  arouse  a  storm  of  moral 
indignation,  but  would  land  both  these  men  in  a  police  court 
and  in  jail  ?  I  say  this  not  in  a  flippant  spirit,  but  merely  to 
bring  out  as  vividly  as  possible  the  difference  between  the  an- 


712  DOES   THE    BIBLE    IGNORE    LOVE? 

cient  Hebrew  and  modern  Christian  ideals  of  love.  Further- 
more, what  an  utter  ignorance  or  disregard  of  the  rights  of 
personal  preference,  sympathy,  and  all  the  higher  ingredients 
of  love,  is  revealed  in  Laban's  remark  that  it  was  not  custom- 
ary to  give  the  younger  daughter  in  marriage  before  the 
older  had  been  disposed  of  !  And  how  utterly  opposed  to  the 
modern  conception  of  love  is  the  sequel  of  the  story,  in  which 
we  are  told  that  "because"  Leah  was  hated  by  her  husband 
"therefore"  she  was  made  fruitful,  and  she  bore  him  four 
sons,  while  the  beloved  Rachel  remained  barren  !  Was  per- 
sonal preference  thus  not  only  to  be  repressed  by  marrying  off 
girls  according  to  their  age,  but  even  punished  ?  No  doubt 
it  was,  according  to  the  Hebrew  notion  ;  in  their  patriarchal 
mode  of  life  the  father  was  the  absolute  tyrant  in  the  house- 
hold, who  reserved  the  right  to  select  spouses  for  both  his 
sons  and  daughters,  and  felt  aggrieved  if  his  plans  were  inter- 
fered with.  The  object  of  marriage  was  not  to  make  a  happy, 
sympathetic  couple,  but  to  raise  sons  ;  wherefore  the  hated 
Leah  naturally  exclaims,  after  she  has  borne  Reuben,  her 
first  son,  "  Now  my  husband  will  love  me/'  That  is  not  the 
kind  of  love  we  look  for  in  our  marriages.  We  expect  a  man 
to  love  his  wife  for  her  own  sake. 

This  notion,  that  the  birth  of  sons  is  the  one  object  of 
marriage,  and  the  source  of  conjugal  love,  is  so  preponder- 
ant in  the  minds  of  these  women  that  it  crowds  out  all  traces 
of  monopoly  or  jealousy.  Leah  and  Rachel  not  only  submit 
to  Laban's  fraudulent  substitution  on  the  wedding-night,  but 
each  one  meekly  accepts  her  half  of  Jacob's  attentions.  The 
utter  absence  of  jealousy  is  strikingly  revealed  in  this  pas- 


"  And  when  Rachel  saw  that  she  bare  Jacob  no  children, 
Rachel  envied  her  sister  ;  and  she  said  unto  Jacob,  Give 
me  children,  or  else  I  die.  And  Jacob's  anger  was  kindled 
against  Rachel  :  and  he  said,  Am  I  in  God's  stead,  who  hath 
withheld  from  thee  the  fruit  of  the  womb  ?  And  she  said, 
Behold  my  maid  Bilhah,  go  in  unto  her  ;  that  she  may 
bear  upon  my  knees,  and  I  also  may  obtain  children  by 
her.  And  she  gave  him  Bilhah  her  handmaid  to  wife  :  and 
Jacob  went  in  unto  her.  And  Bilhah  conceived  and  bare 


THE   STORY    OF   JACOB   AND   RACHEL        713 

Jacob  a  son.  .  .  .  And  Bilhah,  Rachel's  handmaid,  con- 
ceived again,  and  bare  Jacob  a  second  son.  .  .  .  When 
Leah  saw  she  had  left  bearing,  she  took  Zilpah  her  hand- 
maid, and  gave  her  to  Jacob  to  wife.  And  Zilpah  Leah's 
handmaid  bare  Jacob  a  son.  .  .  .  And  God  hearkened 
unto  Leah,  and  she  conceived,  and  bare  Jacob  a  fifth  son. 
And  Leah  said,  God  hath  given  me  my  hire,  because  I  gave 
my  handmaid  to  my  husband." 

Thus  polygamy  and  concubinage  are  treated  not  only  as  a 
matter  of  course,  but  as  a  cause  for  divine  reward  !  It  might 
be  said  that  there  does  exist  a  sort  of  jealousy  between  Leah 
and  Rachel  :  a  rivalry  as  to  which  of  the  two  shall  bear  their 
husband  the  more  sons,  either  by  herself  or  by  proxy.  But 
how  utterly  different  this  rivalry  is  from  the  jealousy  of  a 
modern  Christian  wife,  the  very  essence  of  which  lies  in  the 
imperative  insistence  on  the  exclusive  affection  and  chaste 
fidelity  of  her  husband  !  And  as  modern  Christian  jealousy 
differs  from  ancient  Hebrew  jealousy,  so  does  modern  ro- 
mantic love  in  general  differ  from  Hebrew  love.  There  is 
not  a  line  in  the  story  of  Jacob  and  Rachel  indicating  the 
existence  of  monopoly,  jealousy,  coyness,  hyperbole,  mixed 
moods,  pride,  sympathy,  gallantry,  self-sacrifice,  adoration, 
purity.  Of  the  thirteen  essential  ingredients  of  romantic 
love  only  two  are  implied — individual  preference  and  admira- 
tion of  personal  beauty.  Jacob  preferred  Rachel  to  Leah, 
and  this  preference  was  based  on  her  bodily  charms  :  she  was 
"beautiful  and  well-favored."  Of  the  higher  mental  phases 
of  personal  beauty  not  a  word  is  said. 

In  the  case  of  the  women,  not  even  their  individual  pre- 
ference is  hinted  at,  and  this  is  eminently  characteristic  of 
the  ancient  Hebrew  notions  and  practices  in  regard  to  mar- 
riage. Did  Rachel  and  Leah  marry  Jacob  because  they  pre- 
ferred him  to  all  other  men  they  knew  ?  To  Laban  and  his 
contemporaries  such  a  question  would  have  seemed  absurd. 
They  knew  nothing  of  marriage  as  a  union  of  souls.  The 
woman  was  not  considered  at  all.  The  object  of  marriage, 
as  in  India,  was  to  raise  sons,  in  order  that  there  might  be 
someone  to  represent  the  departed  father.  Being  chiefly 
for  the  father's  benefit,  the  marriage  was  naturally  arranged 


714  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 

by  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  even  Jacob  did  not  select  his 
own  wife  !  "  And  Isaac  called  Jacob,  and  blessed  him,  and 
charged  him  and  said  unto  him,  Thou  shalt  not  take  a  wife 
of  the  daughters  of  Canaan,  Arise,  go  to  Padan-aram,  to  the 
house  of  Bethuel,  thy  mother's  father  ;  and  take  thee  a  wife 
from  thence  of  the  daughters  of  Laban  thy  mother's  brother/' 
And  Jacob  did  as  ordered.  His  choice  was  limited  to  the 
two  sisters. 

THE   COURTING   OF   REBEKAH 

Isaac  himself  had  even  less  liberty  of  choice  than  Jacob. 
He  courted  Rebekah  by  proxy — or  rather  his  father  courted 
her  through  her  father,  for  him,  by  proxy  !  When  Abraham 
was  stricken  with  age  he  said  to  his  servant,  the  elder  of  his 
house,  that  ruled  over  all  that  he  had,  and  enjoined  on  him, 
under  oath,  "  thou  shalt  not  take  a  wife  for  my  son  of  the 
daughters  of  the  Canaanites,  among  whom  I  shall  dwell ;  but 
thou  shalt  go  into  my  country,  and  to  my  kindred,  and  .take 
a  wife  for  my  son  Isaac."  And  the  servant  did  as  he  had 
been  ordered.  He  journeyed  to  the  city  of  Mesopotamia 
where  Abraham's  brother  Nahor  and  his  descendants  dwelt. 
As  he  lingered  at  the  well,  Rebekah  came  out  with  her  pitcher 
upon  her  shoulder.  "  And  the  damsel  was  very  fair  to  look 
upon,  a  virgin,  neither  had  any  man  known  her."  And  she 
filled  her  pitcher  and  gave  him  drink  and  then  drew  water 
and  filled  the  trough  for  all  his  camels.  And  he  gave  her  a 
ring  and  two  bracelets  of  gold.  And  she  ran  and  told  her 
mother's  house  what  had  happened.  And  her  brother  Laban 
ran  out  to  meet  the  servant  of  Abraham  and  brought  him  to 
the  house.  Then  the  servant  delivered  his  message  to  him 
and  to  Rebekah's  father,  Bethuel ;  and  they  answered  :  "Be- 
hold, Rebekah  is  before  thee,  take  her,  and  go,  and  let  her  be 
thy  master's  son's  wife."  And  he  wanted  to  take  her  next 
day,  but  they  wished  her  to  abide  with  them  at  the  least  ten 
days  longer.  "  And  they  said,  We  will  call  the  damsel,  and 
inquire  at  her  mouth.  And  they  called  Rebekah,  and  said 
unto  her,  wilt  thou  go  with  this  man  ?  And  she  said,  I  will 
go.  And  they  sent  away  Rebekah  their  sister,,  and  her  nurse, 


HOW   RUTH   COURTED  BOAZ  715 

and  Abraham's  servant,  and  his  men. "  And  Isaac  was  in  the 
field  meditating  when  he  saw  their  camels  coming  toward 
him.  Rebekah  lifted  up  her  eyes,  and  when  she  saw  Isaac 
she  lighted  off  her  camel,  and  asked  the  servant  who  was  the 
man  coming  to  meet  them  ;  and  when  he  said  it  was  his  mas- 
ter, she  took  her  veil  and  covered  herself.  And  Isaac  brought 
her  into  her  mother's  tent  and  she  became  his  wife,  and  he 
loved  her. 

Such  is  the  story  of  the  courting  of  Rebekah.  It  resembles 
a  story  of  modern  courtship  and  love  about  as  much  as  the 
Hebrew  language  resembles  the  English,  and  calls  for  no 
further  comment.  But  there  is  another  story  to  consider  ; 
my  critics  accused  me  of  ignoring  the  three  R's  of  Hebrew 
love — Rachel,  Rebekah,  and  Ruth.  "  The  courtship  of  Ruth 
and  Boaz  is  a  bold  and  pretty  love-story."  Bold  and  pretty, 
no  doubt ;  but  let  us  see  if  it  is  a  love-story.  The  following 
omits  no  essential  point. 

HOW   RUTH    COUKTED   BOAZ 

It  came  to  pass  during  a  famine  that  a  certain  man  went 
to  sojourn  in  the  country  of  Moab  with  his  wife,  whose  name 
was  Naomi,  and  two  sons.  The  husband  died  there  and  the 
two  sons  also,  having  married,  died  after  ten  years,  leaving 
Naomi  a  widow  with  two  widowed  daughters-in-law,  whose 
names  were  Orpah  and  Ruth.  She  decided  to  return  to  the 
country  whence  she  had  come,  but  advised  the  younger  wid- 
ows to  remain  and  go  back  to  the  families  of  their  mothers. 
1  am  too  old,  she  said,  to  bear  again  husbands  for  you,  and 
even  if  I  could  do  so,  would  you  therefore  tarry  till  they  were 
grown  ?  Orpah  thereupon  kissed  her  mother-in-law  and  went 
back  to  her  people ;  but  Ruth  clave  unto  her  and  said 
"  Whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go  ;  and  where  thou  lodgest,  I 
will  lodge.  .  .  .  Where  thou  diest,  will  I  die."  So  the 
two  went  until  they  came  to  Bethlehem,  in  which  place 
Naomi  had  a  kinsman  of  her  husband,  a  mighty  man  of 
wealth,  whose  name  was  Boaz.  They  arrived  in  the  beginning 
of  the  barley  harvest,  and  Ruth  went  and  gleaned  in  the  field 
after  the  reapers.  Her  hap  was  to  light  on  the  portion  of  the 
field  belonging  to  Boaz.  When  he  saw  her  he  asked  the  reapers 
"  Whose  damsel  is  this  ?  "  And  they  told  him.  Then  Boaz 
spoke  to  Ruth  and  told  her  to  glean  in  his  field  and  abide  with 


716  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 

his  maidens,  and  when  athirst  drink  of  that  which  the  young 
men  had  drawn  ;  and  he  told  the  young  men  not  to  touch 
her.  At  meal-time  he  gave  her  bread  to  eat  and  vinegar  to 
dip  it  in,  and  he  told  his  young  men  to  let  her  glean  even 
aniong  the  sheaves  and  also  to  pull  out  some  for  her  from  the 
bundles,  and  leave  it,  and  let  her  glean  and  rebuke  her  not. 
And  he  did  all  this  because,  as  he  said  to  her,  "It  hath 
been  shewed  me,  all  that  thou  hast  done  to  thy  mother-in- 
law  since  the  death  of  thine  husband  :  and  how  thou  hast 
left  thy  father  and  mother,  and  the  land  of  thy  nativity,  and 
art  come  unto  a  people  which  thou  knewest  not  heretofore/' 

So  Ruth  gleaned  in  the  field  until  even  ;  then  she  beat  out 
what  she  had  gleaned  and  took  it  to  Naomi  and  told  her  all 
that  had  happened.  And  Naomi  said  unto  her,  "My  daugh- 
ter, shall  I  not  seek  rest  for  thee,  that  it  may  be  well  with 
thee  ?  And  now  is  there  not  Boaz  our  kinsman,  with  whose 
maidens  thou  wast  ?  Behold,  he  winnoweth  barley  to-night 
in  the  threshing-floor.  Wash  thyself  therefore,  and  anoint 
thee  and  put  thy  raiment  upon  thee,  and  get  thee  down  'to 
the  threshing-floor  ;  but  make  not  thyself  known  unto  the 
man,  until  he  shall  have  done  eating  and  drinking.  And  it 
shall  be,  when  he  lieth  down,  that  thou  shalt  mark  the  place 
where  he  shall  lie,  and  thou  shalt  go  in,  and  uncover  his 
feet,  and  lay  thee  down  ;  and  he  will  tell  thee  what  thou  wilt 
do."  And  Ruth  did  as  her  mother-in-law  bade  her.  And 
when  Boaz  had  eaten  and  drunk,  and  his  heart  was  merry,  he 
went  to  lie  down  at  the  end  of  the  heap  of  corn  ;  and  she 
came  softly  and  uncovered  his  feet,  and  laid  her  down.  And 
it  came  to  pass  at  midnight,  that  the  man  was  afraid  [startled], 
and  turned  himself  ;  and,  behold,  a  woman  lay  at  his  feet. 
And  he  said,  "  who  art  thou  ?"  And  she  answered,  "I  am  Ruth 
thine  handmaid  ;  spread  therefore  thy  skirt  over  thine  hand- 
maid ;  for  thou  art  a  near  kinsman."  And  he  said,  "  Blessed 
be  thou  of  the  Lord,  my  daughter  ;  thou  hast  shewed  more 
kindness  in  the  latter  end,  than  at  the  beginning,  inasmuch 
as  thou  followedst  not  young  men,  whether  poor  or  rich. 
And  now,  my  daughter,  fear  not  ;  I  will  do  to  thee  all  that 
thou  sayest  ;  for  all  the  city  of  my  people  doth  know  that 
thou  art  a  virtuous  woman.  And  now  it  is  true  that  I  am 
a  near  kinsman  :  howbeit  there  is  a  kinsman  nearer  than 
I.  Tarry  this  night,  and  it  shall  be  in  the  morning,  that 
if  he  will  perform  unto  thee  the  part  of  a  kinsman,  well  ; 
let  him  do  the  kinsman's  part  ;  but  if  he  will  not  do  the  part 
of  a  kinsman  to  thee,  then  will  I  do  the  part  of  a  kinsman  to 
thee,  as  the  LORD  liveth  :  lie  down  until  the  morning/'  And 
she  lay  at  his  feet  until  the  morning  :  and  she  rose  up  before 


HOW   RUTH    COURTED   BOAZ  717 

one  could  discern  another.  For  he  said,  "  Let  it  not  be  known 
that  the  woman  came  to  the  threshing-floor."  Then  he  gave 
her  six  measures  of  barley  and  went  into  the  city.  He  sat  at 
the  gate  until  the  other  kinsman  he  had  spoken  of  came  by, 
and  Boaz  said  to  him,  "  Naomi  selleth  the  parcel  of  land  which 
was  our  brother  Elimelech's.  If  thou  wilt  redeem  it,  redeem 
it ;  but  if  thou  wilt  not  redeem  it,  then  tell  me  that  I  may 
know  ;  for  there  is  none  to  redeem  it  beside  thee  ;  and  I  am 
after  thee.  What  day  thou  buyest  the  field  of  the  hand  of 
Naomi,  thou  must  buy  it  also  of  Ruth,  the  wife  of  the  dead, 
to  raise  up  the  name  of  the  dead  upon  his  inheritance."  And 
the  near  kinsman  said,  "  I  cannot  redeem  it  |or  myself,  lest  I 
mar  mine  own  inheritance  ;  take  then  my  right  of  redemption 
on  thee  ;  for  I  cannot  redeem  it.  Buy  it  for  thyself."  «And 
he  drew  off  his  shoe.  And  Boaz  called  the  elders  to  witness, 
saying,  "  Ruth  the  Moabitess,  the  wife  of  Mahlon,  have  I 
purchased  to  be  my  wife,  to  raise  up  the  name  pf  the  dead 
upon  his  inheritance,  that  the  name  of  the  dead  be  not  cut  off 
from  among  his  brethren,  and  from  the  gate  of  his  place." 
So  Boaz  took  Ruth,  and  she  became  his  wife. 

How  anyone  can  read  this  charmingly  told,  frank,  and 
realistic  tale  of  ancient  Hebrew  life  and  call  it  a  love-story, 
passe th  all  understanding.  There  is  not  the  slightest  sug- 
gestion of  love,  either  sensual  or  sentimental,  on  the  part  of 
either  Ruth  or  Boaz.  Ruth,  at  the  suggestion  of  her  mother- 
in-law,  spends  a  night  in  a  way  which  would  convict  a  Chris- 
tian widow,  to  say  the  least,  of  an  utter  lack  of  that  modesty 
and  coy  reserve  which  are  a  woman's  great  charm,  and  which, 
even  among  the  pastoral  Hebrews,  cannot  have  been  approved, 
inasmuch  as  Boaz  did  not  want  it  to  be  known  that  she  had 
come  to  the  threshing-floor.  He  praises  Ruth  for  following 
"  riot  young  men,  whether  rich  or  poor."  She  followed  him, 
a  wealthy  old  man.  Would  love  have  acted  thus  ?  What 
she  wanted  was  not  a  lover  but  a  protector  ("  rest  for  thee 
that  it  may  be  well  for  thee,"  as  Naomi  said  frankly),  and 
above  all  a  son  in  order  that  her  husband's  name  might 
not  perish.  Boaz  understands  this  as  a  matter  of  course ; 
but  so  far  is  he,  on  his  part,  from  being  in  love  with  Ruth, 
that  he  offers  her  first  to  the  other  relative,  and  on  his  re- 
fusal, buys  her  for  himself,  without  the  least  show  of  emotion 
indicating  that  he  was  doing  anything  but  his  duty.  He  was 


718  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 

simply  fulfilling  the  law  of  the  Levirate,  as  written  in  Deu- 
teronomy (25  : 5),  ordaining  that  if  a  husband  die  without 
leaving  a  son  his  brother  shall  take  the  widow  to  him  to  wife 
and  perform  the  duty  of  an  husband's  brother  unto  her  ;  that 
is,  to  beget  a  son  (the  first-born)  who  shall  succeed  in  the 
name  of  his  dead  brother,  "  that  his  name  be  not  blotted  out 
of  Israel."  How  very  seriously  the  Hebrews  took  this  law 
is  shown  by  the  further  injunction  that  if  a  brother  refuses 
thus  to  perform  his  duty, 

"  then  the  elders  of  his  city  shall  call  him,  and  speak  unto 
him :  and  if  he  stand  and  say,  I  like  not  to  take  her ;  then 
shall  his  brother's  wife  come  into  him  in  the  presence  of  the 
elders,  and  loose  his  shoe  off  his  foot,  and  spit  in  his  face ; 
and  she  shall  answer  and  say,  so  shall  it  be  done  unto  the 
man  that  doth  not  build  up  his  brother's  house.  And  his 
name  shall  be  called  in  Israel,  the  house  of  him  that  hath 
his  shoe  loosed." 

Onan  was  even  slain  for  thus  refusing  to  do  his  duty  (Gen. 
38  : 8-10). 

NO   SYMPATHY   OR   SENTIMENT 

The  three  K's  of  Hebrew  love  thus  show  how  these  people 
arranged  their  marriages  with  reference  to  social  and  relig- 
ious customs  or  utilitarian  considerations,  buying  their  wives 
by  service  or  otherwise,  without  any  thought  of  sentimental 
preferences  and  sympathies,  such  as  underlie  modern  Chris- 
tian marriages  of  the  higher  order.  It  might  be  argued  that 
the  ingredients  of  romantic  love  existed,  but  simply  are  not 
dwelt  on  in  the  old  Hebrew  stories.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  the  Bible,  that  truly  inspired  and  wonderfully 
realistic  transcript  of  life,  which  records  the  minutest  details, 
should  have  neglected  in  its  thirty-nine  books,  making  over 
seven  hundred  pages  of  fine  print,  to  describe  at  least  one 
case  of  sentimental  infatuation,  romantic  adoration,  and  self- 
sacrificing  devotion  in  pre-matrimonial  love,  had  such  love 
existed.  Why  should  it  have  neglected  to  describe  the  mani- 
festations of  sentimental  love,  since  it  dwells  so  often  on  the 
symptoms  and  results  of  sensual  passion  ?  Stories  of  lust 


A   MASCULINE   IDEAL   OF   WOMANHOOD      719 

abound  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures ;  Genesis  alone  has  five. 
The  Lord  repented  that  he  had  made  man  on  earth  and  de- 
stroyed even  his  chosen  people,  all  but  Noah,  because  every 
imagination  in  the  thoughts  of  man's  heart  "  was  only  evil 
continually. "  But  the  flood  did  not  cure  the  evil,  nor  did 
the  destruction  of  Sodom,  as  a  warning  example.  It  is  after 
those  events  that  the  stories  are  related  of  Lot's  incestuous 
daughters,  the  seduction  of  Dinah,  the  crime  of  Judah  and 
Tamar,  the  lust  of  Potiphar's  wife,  of  David  and  Bath-sheba, 
of  Amnon  and  Tamar,  of  Absalom  on  the  roof,  with  many 
other  references  to  such  crimes.1 


A   MASCULINE  IDEAL   OF  WOMANHOOD 

There  is  every  reason  to  conclude  that  these  ancient  Jews, 
unlike  many  of  their  modern  descendants,  knew  only  the 
coarser  phases  of  the  instinct  which  draws  man  to  woman. 
They  knew  not  romantic  love  for  the  simple  reason  that  they 
had  not  discovered  the  charm  of  refined  femininity,  or  even 
recognized  woman's  right  to  exist  for  her  own  sake,  and  not 
merely  as  man's  domestic  servant  and  the  mother  of  his  sons. 
"Thy  desire  shall  be  to  thy  husband,  and  he  shall  rule  over 
thee,"  Eve  was  told  in  Eden,  and  her  male  descendants 
administered  that  punishment  zealously  and  persistently ; 
whereas  the  same  lack  of  gallantry  which  led  Adam  to  put 
all  the  blame  on  Eve  impelled  his  descendants  to  make  the 
women  share  his  part  of  the  curse  too — "  In  the  sweat  of  thy 
face  shalt  thou  eat  bread  "  ;  for  they  were  obliged  to  do  not 
only  all  the  work  in  the  house,  but  most  of  that  in  the  fields, 
seething  under  a  tropical  sun.  From  this  point  of  view  the 
last  chapter  of  the  Proverbs  (31  :  10-31)  is  instructive.  It  is 
often  referred  to  as  a  portrait  of  a  perfect  woman,  but  in 
reality  it  is  little  more  than  a  picture  of  Hebrew  masculine 
selfishness.  Of  the  forty-five  lines  making  up  this  chapter, 
nine  are  devoted  to  praise  of  the  feminine  virtues  of  fidelity 
to  a  husband,  kindness  to  the  needy,  strength,  dignity,  wis- 

«Gen.   19:1-9;  19:30-38;  34:1-31;  38:8-25;  39:6-20;  Judges  19 -22-30  • 
II.  Sam.  3 :  6-9 ;  11 :  2-27  ;  13  : 1-22  ;  16  :  22 ;  etc. 


720  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 

dom,  and  fear  of  the  Lord  ;  while  the  rest  of  the  chapter 
goes  to  show  that  the  Hebrew  woman  indeed  "  eateth  not  the 
bread  of  idleness,"  and  that  the  husband  "  shall  have  no  lack 
of  gain  " — or  spoil,  as  the  alternative  reading  is  : 

"  She  seeketh  wool  and  flax  and  worketh  willingly  with  her 
hands.  She  is  like  the  merchant  ships  :  she  bringeth  her 
food  from  afar.  She  riseth  also  while  it  is  yet  night,  and 

§iveth  meat  to  her  household,  and  their  task  to  the  maidens, 
he  considereth  a  field  and  buyeth  it  ;  with  the  fruit  of  her 
hands  she  planteth  a  vineyard.  .  .  .  She  perceiveth  that 
her  merchandise  is  profitable.  Her  lamp  goeth  not  out  by 
night.  She  layeth  her  hands  to  the  distaff,  and  her  hands 
hold  the  spindle.  .  .  .  She  maketh  for  herself  carpets  of 
tapestry.  .  .  .  She  maketh  linen  garments  and  selleth 
them  ;  and  delivereth  girdles  unto  the  merchant." 

As  for  the  husband,  he  "is  known  in  the  gates,  When  be 
sitteth  among  the  elders  of  the  land,"  which  is  an  easy  and 
pleasant  thing  to  do  ;  hardly  in  accordance  with  the  curse 
the  Lord  pronounced  on  Adam  and  his  male  descendants. 
The  wife  being  thus  the  maid  of  all  work,  as  among  Indians 
and  other  primitive  races,  it  is  natural  that  the  ancient  He- 
brew ideal  of  femininity  should  be  masculine  :  "  She  girdeth 
her  loins  with  strength,  and  maketh  strong  her  arms  ; "  while 
the  feminine  charms  are  sneered  at :  ' '  Favor  is  deceitful,  and 
beauty  is  vain." 


NOT   THE    CHKISTIAN   IDEAL   OF    LOVE 

Not  only  feminine  charms,  but  the  highest  feminine  virtues 
are  sometimes  strangely,  nay,  shockingly  disregarded,  as  in 
the  story  of  Lot  (Gen.  19  :  1-12),  who,  when  besieged  by  the 
mob  clamoring  for  the  two  men  who  had  taken  refuge  in  his 
house,  went  out  and  said  :  "  I  pray  you,  my  brethren,  do  not 
so  wickedly.  Behold  now,  I  have  two  daughters  which  have 
not  known  man  ;  let  me,  I  pray  you,  bring  them  out  unto 
you,  and  do  ye  to  them  as  is  good  in  your  eyes  ;  only  unto 
these  men  do  nothing,  forasmuch  as  they  are  come  under  the 
shadow  of  my  roof."  And  this  man  was  saved,  though  his 
action  was  surely  more  villainous  than  the  wickedness  of  the 


NOT   THE    CHRISTIAN   IDEAL   OF   LOVE       721 

Sodomites  who  were  destroyed  with  brimstone  and  fire.  In 
Judges  (19  :  22-30)  we  read  of  a  man  offering  his  maiden 
daughter  and  his  concubine  to  a  mob  to  prevent  an  unnatural 
crime  being  committed  against  his  guest :  "  Seeing  that  this 
man  is  come  into  my  house,  do  not  this  folly."  This  case 
is  of  extreme  sociological  importance  as  showing  that  not- 
withstanding the  strict  laws  of  Moses  (Levit.  20  :  10  ;  Dent. 
22  :  13-30)  on  sexual  crimes,  the  law  of  hospitality  seems  to 
have  been  held  more  sacred  than  a  father's  regard  for  his 
'daughter's  honor.  The  story  of  Abraham  shows,  too,  that 
he  did  not  hold  his  wife's  honor  in  the  same  esteem  as  a 
modern  Christian  does  :  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  he  was 
come  near  to  enter  into  Egypt,  that  he  said  unto  Sarai  his 
wife,  '  Behold  now,  I  know  that  thou  art  a  fair  woman  to 
look  upon  ;  and  it  shall  come  to  pass,  when  the  Egyptians 
shall  see  thee,  that  they  shall  say,  This  is  his  wife ;  and  they 
will  kill  me,  but  they  will  save  thee  alive.  Say,  I  pray  thee, 
Thou  art  my  sister ;  that  it  may  be  well  with  me  for  thy 
sake,  and  that  my  soul  may  live  because  of  thee."  And  it 
happened  as  he  had  arranged.  She  was  taken  into  Pharaoh's 
house  and  he  was  treated  well  for  her  sake  ;  and  he  had 
sheep,  and  oxen,  and  other  presents.  When  he  went  to  so- 
journ in  Gerar  (Gen.  20  :  1-15)  Abraham  tried  to  repeat  the 
same  stratagem,  taking  refuge,  when  found  out,  in  the 
double  excuse  that  he  was  afraid  he  would  be  slain  for  his 
wife's  sake,  and  that  she  really  was  his  sister,  the  daughter  of 
his  father,  but  not  the  daughter  of  his  mother.  Isaac  fol- 
lowed his  father's  example  in  Gerar  :  "  The  man  of  the  place 
asked  him  of  his  wife  ;  and  he  said,  She  is  my  sister  :  for  he 
feared  to  say,  My  wife  ;  lest  (said  he)  the  men  of  the  place 
should  kill  me  for  Rebekah  ;  because  she  was  fair  to  look 
upon."  Yet  we  were  told  that  Isaac  loved  Rebekah.  Such 
is  not  Christian  love.  The  actions  of  Abraham  and  Isaac  re- 
mind one  of  the  Blackfoot  Indian  tale  told  on  page  631  of  this 
volume.  An  American  army  officer  would  not  only  lay  down 
his  own  life,  but  shoot  his  wife  with  his  own  pistol  before  he 
would  allow  her  to  fall  into  the  enemy's  hands,  because  to  him 
her  honor  is,  of  all  things  human,  the  most  sacred. 


723  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 


UNCHIVALKOUS   SLAUGHTER   OF   WOMEN 

Emotions  are  the  product  of  actions  or  of  ideas  about  actions. 
Inasmuch  as  Hebrew  actions  toward  women  and  ideas  about 
them  were  so  radically  different  from  ours  it  logically  follows 
that  they  cannot  have  known  the  emotions  of  love  as  we  know 
them.  The  only  symptom  of  love  referred  to  in  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  is  Amnon's  getting  lean  from  day  to  day  and  feign- 
ing sickness  (II.  Sam.  13  :  1-22) ;  and  the  story  shows  what 
kind  of  love  that  was.  It  would  be  contrary  to  all  reason  and 
psychological  consistency  to  suppose  that  modern  tenderness 
of  romantic  feeling  toward  women  could  have  existed  among 
a  people  whose  greatest  and  wisest  man  could,  for  any  reason 
whatever,  chide  a  returning  victorious  army,  as  Moses  did 
(Numbers  31 :  9-19),  for  saving  all  the  women  alive,  and 
could  issue  this  command :  "  Now,  therefore,  kill  every 
male  among  the  living  ones,  and  kill  every  woman  that  hath 
known  man  by  lying  with  him.  But  all  the  women  children 
that  have  not  known  man  by  lying  with  him,  keep  alive  for 
yourselves."  The  Arabs  were  the  first  Asiatics  who  spared 
women  in  war ;  the  Hebrews  had  not  risen  to  that  chival- 
rous stage  of  civilization.  Joshua  (8  :  2(5)  destroyed  Ai  and 
slew  12,000,  "  both  of  men  and  women  :  "  and  in  Judges  (21 : 
10-12)  we  read  how  the  congregation  sent  an  army  of  12,000 
men  and  commanded  them,  saying,  "  Go  and  smite  the  inhab- 
itants of  Jabesh-gilead  with  the  edge  of  the  sword,  with  the 
women  and  the  little  ones.  And  this  is  the  thing  ye  shall  do ; 
ye  shall  utterly  destroy  every  male  and  every  woman  that  hath 
lain  by  man."  And  they  did  so,  sparing  only  the  four  hundred 
virgins.  These  were  given  to  the  tribe  of  Benjamin,  "  that  a 
tribe  be  not  blotted  out  from  Israel ; "  and  when  it  was  found 
that  more  were  needed  they  lay  in  wait  in  the  vineyards,  and 
when  the  daughters  of  Shiloh  came  out  to  dance,  they  caught 
them  and  carried  them  off  as  their  wives  ;  whence  we  see  that 
these  Hebrews  had  not  advanced  beyond  the  low  stage  of 
evolution,  when  wives  are  secured  by  capture  or  killed  after 
battle.  Among  such  seek  not  for  romantic  love. 


ABISHAG   THE   SHUNAMMITE  723 

FOUR    MORE   BIBLE    STORIES 

Dr.  Trumbull's  opinion  has  already  been  cited  that  there 
are  certainly  "  gleams  of  romantic  love  from  out  of  the 
clouds  of  degraded  huimin  passions  in  the  ancient  East,"  in 
the  stories  of  Shechem  and  Dinah,  Samson  and  the  damsel  of 
Timnah,  David  and  Abigail,  Adonijah  and  Abishag.  But  I 
fail  to  find  even  "  gleams  "  of  romantic  love  in  these  stories. 
Shechem  said  he  loved  Dinah,  the  daughter  of  Jacob  and 
Leah,  but  he  humbled  her  and  dealt  with  her  "as  with  an 
harlot,"  as  her  brothers  said  after  they  had  slain  him  for  his 
conduct  toward  her.  Concerning  Samson  and  the  Timnah 
girl  we  are  simply  told  that  he  saw  her  and  told  his  father, 
"  Get  her  for  me  ;  for  she  pleaseth  me  well"  (literally,  "she 
is  right  in  my  eyes  ").  And  this  is  evidence  of  romantic 
love  !  As  for  Abigail,  after  her  husband  has  refused  to  feed 
David's  shepherds,  and  David  has  made  up  his  mind  there- 
fore to  slay  him  and  his  offspring,  she  takes  provisions  and 
meets  David  and  induces  him  not  to  commit  that  crime  ; 
she  does  this  not  from  love  for  her  husband,  for  when  David 
has  received  her  presents  he  says  to  her,  "  See,  I  have  heark- 
ened to  thy  voice,  and  have  accepted  thy  person."  ^Ten  days 
later,  Abigail's  husband  died,  and  when  David  heard  of  it  he 
"  sent  and  spake  concerning  Abigail,  to  take  her  to  him  to 
wife.  .  .  .  And  she  rose  and  bowed  herself  with  her  face 
to  the  earth,  and  said,  Behold,  thine  handmaid  is  a  servant 
to  wash  the  feet  of  the  servants  of  my  lord.  And  Abigail, 
hasted,  and  arose,  and  rode  upon  an  ass,  with  five  damsels  of 
hers  that  followed  her  ;  and  she  went  after  the  messengers  of 
David,  and  became  his  wife."  And  as  if  to  emphasize  how 
utterly  unsentimental  and  un-Christian  a  transaction  this 
was,  the  next  sentence  tells  us  that  "  David  also  took  Ahin- 
oam  of  Jezreel ;  and  they  became  both  of  them  his  wives." 

ABISHAG   THE    SHUNAMMITE 

The  last  of  the  stories  referred  to  by  Dr.  Trumbull,  though 
as  far  from  proving  his  point  as  the  others,  is  of  peculiar  in- 
terest because  it  introduces  us  to  the  maiden  who  is  believed 


724  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 

by  some  commentators  to  be  the  same  as  the  Shulamite,  the 
heroine  of  the  Song  of  Songs.  After  Solomon  had  become 
king  his  elder  brother,  Adonijah,  went  to  the  mother  of 
Solomon,  Bath-sheba,  and  said:  "Thou  knowest  thy  king- 
dom was  mine,  and  that  all  Israel  se£  their  faces  on  me,  that 
I  should  reign  :  howbeit  the  kingdom  is  turned  about,  and  is 
become  my  brother's  :  for  it  was  his  from  the  Lord.  And 
now  I  ask  one  petition  of  thee,  deny  me  not.  .  .  .  Speak, 
I  pray  thee,  unto  Solomon  the  king  (for  he  will  not  say  thee 
nay)  that  he  give  me  Abishag  the  Shunammite  to  wife."  But 
when  Solomon  heard  this  request  lie  declared  that  Adonijah 
had  spoken  that  word  against  his  own  life ;  and  he  sent  a 
man  who  fell  on  him  and  killed  him. 

Who  was  this  Abishag,  the  Shunammite  ?  The  opening 
lines  of  the  First  Book  of  Kings  tell  us  how  she  came  to  the 
court : 

"  Now  King  David  was  old  and  stricken  in  years  ;  and  they 
covered  him  with  clothes,  but  he  gat  no  heat.  Wherefore 
his  servants  said  unto  him,  Let  there  be  sought  for  my  lord 
the  king,  a  young  virgin,  and  let  her  stand  before  the  king 
and  cherish  him  ;  and  let  her  lie  in  thy  bosom,  that  my  lord 
the  king  may  get  heat.  So  they  sought  for  a  fair  damsel 
throughout  all  the  coasts  of  Israel,  and  found  Abishag  the 
Shunammite,  and  brought  her  to  the  king.  And  the  damsel 
was  very  fair  ;  and  she  cherished  the  king,  and  ministered 
to  him  ;  but  the  king  knew  her  not." 


THE    SONG   OF    SONGS 

Now  it  is  plausibly  conjectured  that  this  Abishag  of  Shu- 
nam  or  Shulam  (a  town  north  of  Jerusalem)  was  the  same  as 
the  Shulamite  of  the  Song  of  Songs,  and  that  in  the  lines 
6  : 11-12  she  tells  how  she  was  kidnapped  and  brought  to 
court . 

1  went  down  into  the  garden  of  nuts, 

To  see  the  green  plants  of  the  valley, 

To  see  whether  the  vine  budded, 

And  the  pomegranates  were  in  flower, 

Or  ever  I  was  aware,  my  soul  [desire]  set  me 

Among  the  chariots  of  ruy  princely  people. 


THE   SONG    OF   SONGS  725 

She  also  explains  why  her  face  is  tanned  like  the  dark  tents 
of  Kedar  :  "My  mother's  sons  were  incensed  against  me, 
They  made  me  keeper  of  the  vineyards."  The  added  words 
"mine  own  vineyard  have  I  not  kept  "are  interpreted  by 
some  as  an  apology  for  her  neglected  personal  appearance, 
but  Renan  (10)  more  plausibly  refers  them  to  her  conscious- 
ness of  some  indiscretion,  which  led  to  her  capture.  We 
may  suppose  that,  attracted  by  the  glitter  and  the  splendor 
of  the  royal  cavalcade,  she  for  a  moment  longed  to  enjoy  it, 
and  her  desire  was  gratified.  Brought  to  court  to  comfort 
the  old  king,  she  remained  after  his  death  at  the  palace,  and 
Solomon,  who  wished  to  add  her  to  his  harem,  killed  his  own 
brother  when  he  found  him  coveting  her.  The  maiden  soon 
regrets  her  indiscretion  in  having  exposed  herself  to  capture. 
She  is  "  a  rose  of  Sharon,  a  lily  of  the  valley,"  and  she  feels 
like  a  wildflower  transplanted  to  a  palace  hall.  While  Sol- 
omon in  all  his  glory  urges  his  suit,  she,  tormented  by  home- 
sickness, thinks  only  of  her  vineyard,  her  orchards,  and  the 
young  shepherd  whose  love  she  enjoyed  in  them.  Absent- 
minded,  as  one  in  a  revery,  or  dreaming  aloud,  she  answers 
the  addresses  of  the  king  and  his  women  in  words  that  ever 
refer  to  her  shepherd  lover  : l 

"  Tell  me,  0  thou  whom  my  soul  loveth,  where  thou  feed- 
est  thy  flock."  "  My  beloved  is  unto  me  as  a  cluster  of 
henna  flowers  in  the  vineyards  of  En-gedi."  "  Behold,  thou 
art  fair,  my  beloved,  yea  pleasant :  Also  our  couch  is  green." 
"As  the  apple-tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood,  so  is  my  be- 
loved among  the  sons.  I  sat  down  under  his  shadow  with 
great  delight,  and  his  fruit  was  sweet  to  my  taste."  "  The 
voice  of  my  beloved  !  behold,  he  cometh,  leaping  upon  the 
mountains,  skipping  upon  the  hills."  "  My  beloved  is  mine, 
and  I  am  his  :  He  feedeth  his  flock  among  the  lilies/'  "  Come, 
my  beloved,  let  us  go  forth  into  the  field,  let  us  lodge  in  the 
villages.  Let  us  get  up  early  to  the  vineyards.  .  .  . 
There  will  I  give  thee  my  love." 

The  home-sick  country  girl,  in  a  word,  has  found  out  that 
the  splendors  of  the  palace  are  not  to  her  taste,  and  the 

1  For  whom  the  Hebrew  poet  has  a  special  word  (dodi)  different  from  that 
used  when  Solomon  is  referred  to. 


726  DOES   THE   BIBLE   IGNORE   LOVE? 

thought  of  being  a  young  shepherd's  darling  is  pleasanter  to 
her  than  that  of  being  an  old  king's  concubine.  The  polyg- 
amous rapture  with  which  Solomon  addresses  her  :  "  There 
are  three-score  queens  and  four-score  concubines,  and  maid- 
ens without  number,"  does  not  appeal  to  her  rural  taste. 
She  has  no  desire  to  be  the  hundred  and  forty-first  piece  of 
mosaic  inlaid  in  Solomon's  palanquin  (III.,  9-10),  and  she 
stubbornly  resists  his  advances  until,  impressed  by  her  firm- 
ness, and  unwilling  to  force  her,  the  king  allows  her  to  return 
to  her  vineyard  and  her  lover. 

The  view  that  the  gist  of  the  Song  of  Songs  is  the  Shula- 
mite's  love  of  a  shepherd  and  her  persistent  resistance  to  the 
advances  of  Solomon,  was  first  advanced  in  1771  by  J.  F. 
Jacobi,  and  is  now  universally  accepted  by  the  commentators, 
the  overwhelming  majority  of  whom  have  also  given  up  the 
artificial  and  really  blasphemous  allegorical  interpretation  of 
this  poem  once  in  vogue,  but  ignored  in  the  Revised  Version, 
as  well  as  the  notion  that  Solomon  wrote  the  poem.  Apart 
from  all  other  arguments,  which  are  abundant,  it  is  absurd 
to  suppose  that  Solomon  would  have  written  a  drama  to 
proclaim  his  own  failure  to  win  the  love  of  a  simple  country 
girl.  In  truth,  it  is  very  probable  that,  as  Renan  has  elo- 
quently set  forth  (91-100),  the  Song  of  Songs  was  written 
practically  for  the  purpose  of  holding  up  Solomon  to  ridicule. 
In  the  northern  part  of  his  kingdom  there  was  a  strong  feel- 
ing against  him  on  account  of  his  wicked  ways  and  vicious 
innovations,  especially  his  harem,  and  other  expensive  habits 
that  impoverished  the  country.  "  Taken  all  in  all,"  says  the 
Rev.  W.  E.  Griffis,  of  Solomon  (44),  "  he  was  probably  one 
of  the  worst  sinners  described  in  the  Old  Testament.  With 
its  usual  truth  and  fearlessness,  the  Scriptures  expose  his  real 
character,  and  by  the  later  prophets  and  by  Jesus  he  is  ignored 
or  referred  to  only  in  rebuke."  The  contempt  and  hatred 
inspired  by  his  actions  were  especially  vivid  shortly  after  his 
death,  when  the  Song  of  Songs  is  believed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten (Renan,  97) ;  and,  as  this  author  remarks  (100),  "  the 
poet  seems  to  have  been  animated  by  a  real  spite  against  the 
king  ;  the  establishment  of  a  harem,  in  particular,  appears  to 


THE   SONG    OF   SONGS  727 

incense  him  greatly,  and  he  takes  evident  pleasure  in  showing 
us  a  simple  shepherd  girl  triumphing  over  the  presumptuous 
sultan  who  thinks  he  can  buy  love,  like  everything  else,  with 
his  gold/' 

That  this  is  intended  to  be  the  moral  of  this  Biblical  drama 
is  further  shown  by  the  famous  lines  near  the  close  :  "  For 
love  is  strong  as  death ;  jealousy  is  cruel  as  the  grave  [liter- 
ally :  passion  is  as  inexorable  (or  hard)  as  sheol]  :  The 
flashes  thereof  are  flashes  of  fire,  a  very  flame  of  the  Lord. , 
Many  waters  cannot  quench  it,  nor  can  the  floods  drown  it  : 
If  a  man  should  give  all  the  substance  of  his  house  for  love, 
he  [it]  would  utterly  be  contemned."  These  lines  constitute 
the  last  of  the  passages  cited  by  my  critics  to  prove  that  the 
ancient  Hebrews  knew  romantic  love  and  its  power.  They 
doubtless  did  know  the  power  of  love ;  all  the  ancient  civil- 
ized nations  knew  it  as  a  violent  sensual  impulse  which  blindly 
sacrifices  life  to  attain  its  object.  The  ancient  Hindoos  em- 
bodied their  idea  of  irresistible  power  in  the  force  and  fury 
of  an  amorous  elephant.  Among  animals  in  general,  love  is 
even  stronger  than  death.  Male  animals  of  most  species  en- 
gage in  deadly  combat  for  the  females.  "  For  most  insects," 
says  Letourneau,  "  to  love  and  to  die  are  almost  synonymous 
terms,  and  yet  they  do  not  even  try  to  resist  the  amorous 
frenzy  that  urges  them  on."  Yet  no  one  would  dream  of 
calling  this  romantic  love  ;  from  that  it  differs  as  widely  as 
the  insect  mind  in  general  differs  from  the  human  mind. 
Waters  cannot  quench  any  kind  of  love  or  affection  nor  floods 
drown  it.  What  we  are  seeking  for  are  actions  or  words  de- 
scribing the  specific  symptoms  of  sentimental  love,  and  these 
are  not  to  be  found  in  this  passage  any  more  than  elsewhere  in 
the  Bible.  An  old  man  may  buy  a  girl's  body,  but  he  cannot, 
with  all  his  wealth  and  splendor,  awaken  her  love,  either  sen- 
timental or  sensual  ;  love,  whatever  its  nature,  will  always 
prefer  the  apple-tree  and  the  shepherd  lover  to  the  vain  de* 
sires  and  a  thousand  times  divided  attentions  of  a  decrepit 
king,  though  he  be  a  Solomon. 

It  would  be  strange  if  this  purely  profane  poem,  which  was 
added  to  the  Scriptural  collection  only  by  an  unusual  stretch 


728  DOES   THE   BIBLE    IGNORE    LOVE? 

of  liberality,1  and  in  which  there  is  not  one  mention  of  God 
or  of  religion,  should  give  a  higher  conception  of  sexual  love 
than  the  books  which  are  accepted  as  inspired,  and  which 
paint  manners,  emotions,  and  morals  as  the  writers  found 
them.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Song  of  Songs  was  long  held 
to  be  so  objectionable  that  the  Talmud ists  did  not  allow 
young  people  to  read  it  before  their  thirtieth  year.  Whiston 
denounced  it  as  foolish,  lascivious,  and  idolatrous.  "  The 
excessively  amative  character  of  some  passages  is  designated  as 
almost  blasphemous  when  supposed  to  be  addressed  by  Christ 
to  his  Church/" 2  as  it  was  by  the  allegorists.  On  the  other 
hand  there  is  a  class  of  commentators  to  whom  this  poem  is 
the  ideal  of  all  that  is  pure  and  lovely.  Herder  went  into 
ecstasies  over  it.  Israel  Abrahams  refers  to  it  (163)  as  "  the 
noblest  of  love-poems  ;"  as  "this  idealization  of  love."  The 
Rev.  TV.  E.  Griffis  declares  rapturously  (166,  63,  21,  16, 
250)  that  ' '  the  purest-minded  virgin  may  safely  read  the 
Song  of  Songs,  in  which  is  no  trace  of  immoral  thought." 
In  it  "sensuality  is  scorned  and  pure  love  glorified;"  it 
"  sets  forth  the  eternal  romance  of  true  love,"  and  is 
"  chastely  pure  in  word  and  delicate  in  idea  throughout." 
"The  poet  of  the  Canticle  shows  us  how  to  love."  "An 
angel  might  envy  such  artless  love  dwelling  in  a  human 
heart." 

The  truth,  as  usual  in  such  cases,  lies  about  half-way 
between  these  extreme  views.  There  is  only  one  passage 
which  is  objectionably  coarse  in  the  English  version  and  in 
the  Hebrew  original  obscene ; 3  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  I 
maintain  that  the  whole  poem  is  purely  Oriental  in  its  ex- 
clusively sensuous  and  often  sensual  character,  and  that  there 
is  not  a  trace  of  romantic  sentiment  such  as  would  color  a 
similar  love-story  if  told  by  a  modern  poet.  The  Song  of 
Songs  is  so  confused  in  its  arrangement,  its  plan  so  obscure, 

1  See  Kenan,  Preface,   p.    iv.     It  is  of  all  Biblical  books,  the  one    "  pour 
lequel  les  scribes  qui  ont  decide'  du  sort  des  ecrits  hcbreux  ont  le  plus  elargi 
leurs  regies  d'admission." 

2  McClmtock  and  Strong. 

3 In  the  seventh  chapter  there  are  lines  where,  as  Renan  points  out  (50),  the 
speaker,  in  describing  the  girl,  'l  vante  ses  charmes  les  plusintimes,"  and  where 
the  translator  was  ''  oblige'  a  des  attenuations."  • 


THE    SONG    OF   SONGS  729 

its  repetitions  and  repented  denouements  so  puzzling,1  that 
commentators  are  not  always  agreed  as  to  what  character  in 
the  drama  is  to  be  held  responsible  for  certain  lines  ;  but 
for  our  purpose  this  difficulty  makes  no  difference.  Taking 
the  lines  just  as  they  stand,  I  find  that  the  following  :  — 
1  :  2-4,  13  (in  one  version),  17  ;  2  :  6  ;  4  :  16  ;  5  :  1  ;  8  :  2, 
3 — are  indelicate  in  language  or  suggestion,  as  every  student 
of  Oriental  amorous  poetry  knows,  and  no  amount  of  spe- 
cious argumentation  can  alter  this.  The  descriptions  of  the 
beauty  and  charms  of  the  beloved  or  the  lover,  are,  moreover, 
invariably  sensuous  and  often  sensual.  Again  and  again  are 
their  bodily  charms  dwelt  on  rapturously,  as  is  customary  in 
the  poems  of  all  Orientals  with  all  sorts  of  quaint  hyperbolic 
comparisons,  some  of  which  are  poetic,  others  grotesque.  No 
fewer  than  five  times  are  the  external  charms  thus  enumerated, 
but  not  once  in  the  whole  poem  is  any  allusion  made  to  the 
spiritual  attractions,  the  mental  and  moral  charms  of  femin- 
inity which  are  the  food  of  romantic  love.  Mr.  Griffis,  who 
cannot  help  commenting  (223)  on  this  frequent  description  of 
the  human  body,  makes  a  desperate  effort  to  come  to  the 
rescue.  Referring  to  4  :  12-14,  he  says  (212)  that  the  lover 
now  "adds  a  more  delicate  compliment  to  her  modesty,  her 
instinctive  refinement,  her  chaste  life,  her  purity  amid  court 
temptations.  He  praises  her  inward  ornaments,  her  soul's 
charms."  What  are  these  ornaments  ?  The  possible  refer- 
ence to  her  chastity  in  the  lines  :  "  A  garden  shut  up  is  my 
sister,  my  bride.  A  spring  shut  up,  a  fountain  sealed  " — a 
reference  which,  if  so  intended,  would  be  regarded  by  a  Chris- 
tian maiden  not  as  a  compliment,  but  an  insult  ;  while  every 
student  of  Eastern  manners  knows  that  an  Oriental  makes  of 

1  Renan  says  justly  that  it  is  the  most  obscure  of  all  Hebrew  poems.  Ac- 
cording to  the  old  Hebrew  exegesis,  every  passage  in  the  Bible  has  seventy  dif- 
ferent meanings,  all  of  them  equally  true  ;  but  of  this  Song  a  great  many  more 
than  seventy  interpretations  have  been  given :  the  titles  of  treatises  on  the 
Canticles  fill  four  columns  of  fine  print  in  McClintock  and  Strong's  Cyclopaedia. 
Griffis  declares  that  it  is,  "probably,  the  most  perfect  poem  in  any  language," 
but  in  my  opinion  it  is  far  inferior  to  other  books  in  the  Bible.  The  adjective 
perfect  is  not  applicable  to  a  poem  so  obscure  that  more  than  half  its  meaning 
has  to  be  read  between  the  lines,  while  its  plan,  if  plan  it  has,  is  so  mixed  up 
and  hindmost  foremost  that  I  sometimes  feel  tempted  to  accept  the  view  of 
Border  and  others  that  the  Sony  of  Sonys  is  not  one  drama,  but  a  collection  o< 
unconnected  poems. 


730  DOES   THE    BIBLE    IGNORE    LOVE? 

his  wife  "a  garden  shut  up/' and  "  a  fountain  sealed"  not 
by  way  of  complimenting  her  chastity,  but  because  he  has  no 
faith  in  it  whatever,  knowing  that  so  far  as  it  exists  it  is 
founded  on  fear,  not  on  affection.  Mr.  Griffis  knows  this 
himself  when  he  does  not  happen  to  be  idealizing  an  impos- 
sible shepherd  girl,  for  he  says  (161) :  "  To  one  familiar  with 
the  literature,  customs,  speech,  and  ideas  of  the  women  who 
live  where  idolatry  prevails,  and  the  rulers  and  chief  men  of 
the  country  keep  harems,  the  amazing  purity  and  modesty  of 
maidens  reared  in  Christian  homes  is  like  a  revelation  from 
heaven."1 

Supersensual  charms  are  not  alluded  to  in  the  Song  of 
Songs,  for  the  simple  reason  that  Orientals  never  did,  and  do 
not  now,  care  for  such  charms  in  women  or  cultivate  them. 
They  know  love  only  as  an  appetite,  and  in  accordance  with 
Oriental  taste  and  custom  the  Song  of  Songs  compares  it  al- 
ways to  things  that  are  good  to  eat  or  drink  or  smell.  Hence 
such  ecstatic  expressions  as  "How  much  better  is  thy  love 
than  wine  !  And  the  smell  of  thine  ointments  than  all  manner 
of  spices  I"  Hence  her  declaration  that  her  beloved  is  '•  as 
the  apple-tree  among  the  trees  of  the  wood.  .  .  .  I  sat 
down  under  his  shadow  with  great  delight,  and  his  fruit  was 
sweet  to  my  taste.  .  .  .  Stay  ye  me  with  raisins,  com- 
fort me  with  apples  :  For  I  am  sick  of  love.  His  left  hand 
is  under  my  head,  and  his  right  hand  doth  embrace  me." 
Hence  the  shepherd's  description  of  his  love  :  "  I  am  come 
into  the  garden,  my  sister,  my  bride  :  I  have  gathered  my 

1  Mr.  Griffis'  lucid,  ingenious,  and  admirably  written  monograph  entitled, 
The  Lily  among  Thorns,  is  unfortunately  marred  in  many  parts  by  the  au- 
thor's attitude,  which  is  not  that  of  a  critic  or  a  judge,  but  of  a  lawyer  who  has 
a  case  to  prove,  that  black  and  gray  are  really  snow  white.  His  sense  of  humor 
ought  to  have  prev  anted  him  from  picturing  an  Eastern  shepherd  complimenting 
a  girl  of  his  class  on  her  li  instinctive  refinement. "  He  carries  this  idealizing  pro- 
cess so  far  that  he  arbitrarily  divides  the  line  "  I  am  black  but  comely,"  attribut- 
ing the  first  three  words  to  the  Shulamite,  the  other  two  to  a  chorus  of  her  rivals 
in  Solomon's  harem  !  The  latter  supposition  is  inconceivable  ;  and  why  should 
not  the  Shulamite  call  herself  comely  ?  1  once  looked  admiringly  at  a  gypsy  girl 
in  Spain,  who  promptly  opened  her  lips,  and  said,  with  an  arch  smile,  "soy  muy 
bonita  "— tl  I  am  very  pretty  !  " — which  seemed  the  natural,  naive  attitude  of 
an  Oriental  girl.  To  argue  away  such  a  trifling  spot  on  maiden  modesty  as  the 
Shulamite's  calling  herself  comely,  while  seeing  no  breach  of  delicacy  in  her  in- 
viting her  lover  to  come  into  the  garden  and  eat  his  precious  fruits,  though  ad- 
mitting (214)  that  u  the  maiden  yields  thus  her  heart  and  her  all  to  her  lover," 
is  surely  straining  at  a  gnat  and  swallowing  a  camel. 


THE   SONG   OF   SONGS  731 

myrrh  with  my  spice  :  I  have  eaten  my  honeycomb  with  my 
honey  ;  I  have  drunk  my  wine  with  my  milk." 

Modern  love  does  not  express  itself  in  such  terms  ;  it  is 
more  mental  and  sentimental,  more  esthetic  and  sympathetic, 
more  decorous  and  delicate,  more  refined  and  supersensual. 
While  it  is  possible  that,  as  Eenan  suggests  (143),  the  author 
of  the  Canticles  conceived  his  heroine  as  a  saint  of  her  time, 
rising  above  sordid  reality,  it  is  clear  from  all  we  have  said 
that  the  author  himself  was  not  able  to  rise  above  Oriental- 
ism. The  manners  of  the  East,  both  ancient  and  modern, 
are  incompatible  with  romantic  love,  because  they  suppress 
the  evolution  of  feminine  refinement  and  sexual  mentality. 
The  documents  of  the  Hebrews,  like  those  of  the  Hindoos  and 
Persians,  Greeks,  and  Romans,  prove  that  tender,  refined,  and 
unselfish  affection  between  the  sexes,  far  from  being  one  of  the 
first  shoots  of  civilization,  is  its  last  and  most  beautiful  flower. 


GKEEK  LOVE-STOKIES  AND  POEMS 

THE  most  obstinate  disbeliever  in  the  doctrine  that  roman- 
tic love,  instead  of  being  one  of  the  earliest  products  of  civili- 
zation, is  one  of  the  latest,  will  have  to  capitulate  if  it  can  be 
shown  that  even  the  Greeks,  the  most  cultivated  and  refined 
nation  of  antiquity,  knew  it  only  in  its  sensual  and  selfish 
side,  which  is  not  true  love,  but  self-love.  In  reality  I  have 
already  shown  this  to  be  the  case  incidentally  in  the  sections 
in  which  I  have  traced  the  evolution  of  the  fourteen  ingredi- 
ents of  love.  In  the  present  chapter,  therefore,  we  may  con- 
fine ourselves  chiefly  to  a  consideration  of  the  stories  and 
poems  which  have  fostered  the  belief  I  am  combating.  But 
first  we  must  hear  what  the  champions  of  the  Greeks  have  to 
say  in  their  behalf. 


CHAMPIONS    OF    GREEK    LOVE 

Professor  Rohde  declares  emphatically  (70)  that  "  no  one 
would  be  so  foolish  as  to  doubt  the  existence  of  pure  and 
strong  love  "  among  the  ancient  Greeks.  Another  eminent 
German  scholar,  Professor  Ebers,  sneers  at  the  idea  that  the 
Greeks  were  not  familiar  with  the  love  we  know  and  celebrate. 
Having  been  criticised  for  making  the  lovers  in  his  ancient 
historic  romances  act  and  talk  and  express  their  feelings  pre- 
cisely as  modern  lovers  in  Berlin  or  Leipsic  do,  he  wrote  for 
the  second  edition  of  his  Egyptian  Princess  a  preface  in  which 
he  tries  to  defend  his  position.  He  admits  that  he  did,  per- 
haps, after  all,  put  too  warm  colors  on  his  canvas,  and 
frankly  confesses  that  when  he  examined  in  the  sunshine 
what  he  had  written  by  lamplight,  he  made  up  his  mind  to 
destroy  his  love-scenes,  but  was  prevented  by  a  friend.  He 
admits,  too,  that  Christianity  refined  the  relations  between 

732 


CHAMPIONS   OF  GREEK   LOVE  733 

the  sexes  ;  yet  he  thinks  it  "  quite  conceivable  that  a  Greek 
heart  should  have  felt  as  tenderly,  as  longingly  as  a  Christian 
heart/'  and  he  refers  to  a  number  of  romantic  stories  invent- 
ed by  the  Greeks  as  proof  that  they  knew  love  in  our  sense 
of  the  word — such  stories  as  Apuleius's  Cupid  and  Psyche, 
Homer's  portrait  of  Penelope,  Xenophon's  tale  of  Panthea  and 
Abradates.  "Can  we  assume  even  the  gallantry  of  love  to 
have  been  unknown  in  a  country  where  the  hair  of  a  queen, 
Berenice,  was  transferred  as  a  constellation  to  the  skies  ;  or 
can  devotion  to  love  be  doubted  in  the  case  of  peoples  who, 
for  the  sake  of  a  beautiful  woman,  wage  terrible  wars  with 
bitter  pertinacity  ?  " 

Hegel's  episodic  suggestion  referred  to  in  our  first  chapter 
regarding  the  absence  of  romantic  love  in  ancient  Greek 
literature  having  thus  failed  to  convince  even  his  own 
countrymen,  it  was  natural  that  my  revival  of  that  sugges- 
tion, as  a  detail  of  my  general  theory  of  the  evolution  of 
love,  should  have  aroused  a  chorus  of  critical  dissent.  Com- 
menting on  my  assertion  that  there  are  no  stories  of  roman- 
tic love  in  Greek  literature,  an  editorial  writer  in  the  Lon- 
don Daily  News  exclaimed  :  "  Why,  it  would  be  less  wild 
to  remark  that  the  Greeks  had  nothing  but  love-stories."' 
After  referring  to  the  stories  of  Orpheus  and  Eurydice, 
Meleager  and  Atalanta,  Alcyone  and  Ceyx,  Cephalus  and 
Procris,  the  writer  adds,  "  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
any  school-girl  could  tell  Mr.  Finck  a  dozen  others."  "  The 
Greeks  were  human  beings,  and  had  the  sentiments  of  human 
beings,  which  really  vary  but  little.  .  .  .  "  The  New 
York  Mail  and  Express  also  devoted  an  editorial  article  to 
my  book,  in  which  it  remarked  that  if  romantic  love  is,  as 
I  claim,  an  exclusively  modern  sentiment, 

"  we  must  get  rid  of  some  old-fashioned  fancies.  How  shall 
we  hereafter  classify  our  old  friends  Hero  and  Leander  ? 
Leander  was  a  fine  fellow,  just  like  the  handsomest  boy  you 
know.  He  fell  in  love  with  the  lighthouse-keeper's  daughterf !] 
and  used  to  swim  over  the  riverf!]  every  night  and  make  love 
to  her.  It  was  all  told  by  an  old  Greek  named  Musaeus. 
How  did  he  get  such  modern  notions  into  his  noddle  ?  How, 
moreover,  shall  we  classify  Daphnis  and  Chloe  ?  This  fine 


734          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

old  romance  of  Longus  is  as  sweet  and  beautiful  a  love-story 
as  ever  skipped  in  prose." 

"  Daphnis  and  Chloe,"  wrote  a  New  Haven  critic,  "  is  one 
of  the  most  idyllic  love-stories  ever  written/'  "  The  love 
story  of  Hero  and  Leander  upsets  this  author's  theory  com- 
pletely/' said  a  Rochester  reviewer,  while  a  St.  Louis  critic 
declared  boldly  that  "  in  the  pages  of  Achilles  Tatius  and 
Theodorus,  inventors  of  the  modern  novel,  the  young  men 
and  maidens  loved  as  romantically  as  in  Miss  Evans's  latest." 
A  Boston  censor  pronounced  my  theory  "  simply  absurd," 
adding  : 

"  Mr.  Finck's  reading,  wide  as  it  is,  is  not  wide  enough  ; 
for  had  he  read  the  Alexandrian  poets,  Theocritus  especially, 
or  Behr  A'Adin  among  the  Arabs,  to  speak  of  no  others,  he 
could  not  possibly  have  had  courage  left  to  maintain  his 
theory  ;  and  with  him,  really,  it  seems  more  a  matter  of  cour- 
age than  of  facts,  notwithstanding  his  evident  training  in  a 
scientific  atmosphere." 


GLADSTONE    ON   THE    WOMEN   OF   HOMER 

The  divers  specifications  of  my  ignorance  and  stupidity 
contained  in  the  foregoing  criticisms  will  be  attended  to  in 
their  proper  place  in  the  chronological  order  of  the  present 
chapter,  which  naturally  begins  with  Homer's  epics,  as  noth- 
ing definite  is  known  of  Greek  literature  before  them.  Homer 
is  now  recognized  as  the  first  poet  of  antiquity,  not  only  in 
the  order  of  time ;  but  it  took  Europe  many  centuries  to  dis- 
cover that  fact.  During  the  Middle  Ages  the  second-rate 
Virgil  was  held  to  be  a  much  greater  genius  than  Homer,  and 
it  was  in  England,  as  Professor  Christ  notes  (69),  that  the 
truer  estimate  originated.  Pope's  translation  of  the  Homeric 
poems,  with  all  its  faults,  helped  to  dispel  the  mists  of  ignor- 
ance, and  in  1775  appeared  Robert  Wood's  book,  On  the 
Original  Genius  and  Writings  of  Homer,  which  combated 
the  foolish  prejudice  against  the  poet,  due  to  the  coarseness 
of  the  manners  he  depicts.  Wood  admits  (101)  that  "  most 
of  Homer's  heroes  would,  in  the  present  age,  be  capitally 


GLADSTONE   ON   THE    WOMEN   OF   HOMER     735 

convicted,  in  any  country  in  Europe,  on  the  poet's  evidence ;" 
but  this,  he  explains,  does  not  detract  from  the  greatness  of 
Homer,  who,  upon  an  impartial  view,  "  will  appear  to  excel 
his  own  state  of  society,  in  point  of  decency  and  delicacy,  as 
much  as  he  has  surpassed  more  polished  ages  in  point  of 
genius." 

In  this  judicious  discrimination  between  the  genius  of 
Homer  and  the  realistic  coarseness  of  his  heroes,  Wood  forms 
an  agreeable  contrast  to  many  modern  Homeric  scholars,  no- 
tably the  Et.  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  who,  having  made 
this  poet  his  hobby,  tried  to  persuade  himself  and  his  readers 
that  nearly  everything  relating  not  only  to  Homer,  but  to  the 
characters  he  depicts,  was  next  door  to  perfection.  Confining 
ourselves  to  the  topic  that  concerns  us  here,  we  read,  in  his 
Studies  on  Homer  (II.,  502),  that  "  we  find  throughout  the 
poems  those  signs  of  the  overpowering  force  of  conjugal  at- 
tachments which  ...  we  might  expect."  And  in  his 
shorter  treatise  on  Homer  he  thus  sums  up  his  views  as  to 
the  position  and  estimate  of  woman  in  the  heroic  age,  as  re- 
vealed in  Homer's  female  characters  : 

"  The  most  notable  of  them  compare  advantageously  with 
those  commended  to  us  in  the  Old  Testament ;  while  Achaiian 
Jezebels  are  nowhere  found.  There  is  a  certain  authority  of 
the  man  over  the  woman  ;  but  it  does  not  destroy  freedom,  or 
imply  the  absence  either  of  respect,  or  of  a  close  mental  and 
moral  fellowship.  Not  only  the  relation  of  Odusseus  to  Pen- 
elope and  of  Hector  to  Andromache,  but  those  of  Achilles  to 
Briseis,  and  of  Menelaus  to  the  returned  Helen,  are  full  of 
dignity  and  attachment.  Briseis  was  but  a  captive,  yet 
Achilles  viewed  her  as  in  expectation  a  wife,  called  her  so, 
avowed  his  love  for  her,  and  laid  it  down  that  not  he  only, 
but  every  man  must  love  his  wife  if  he  had  sense  and  virtue. 
Among  the  Achaiian  Greeks  monogamy  is  invariable  ;  divorce 
unknown ;  incest  abhorred.  .  .  .  The  sad  institution 
which,  in  Saint  Augustine's  time,  was  viewed  by  him  as  sav- 
ing the  world  from  yet  worse  evil  is  unknown  or  unrecorded. 
Concubinage  prevails  in  the  camp  before  Troy,  but  only  sim- 
ple concubinage.  Some  of  the  women,  attendants  in  the  Ith- 
acaii  palace,  were  corrupted  by  the  evil-minded  Suitors  ;  but 
some  were  not.  It  should,  perhaps,  be  noted  as  a  token  of 
the  respect  paid  to  the  position  of  the  woman,  that  these  very 


736  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES    AND    POEMS 

bad  men  are  not  represented  as  ever  having  included  in  their 
plans  the  idea  of  offering  violence  to  Penelope.  The  noblest 
note,  however,  of  the  Homeric  woman  remains  this,  that  she 
shared  the  thought  and  heart  of  her  husband  :  as  in  the  fine 
utterance  of  Penelope  she  prays  that  rather  she  may  be  borne 
away  by  the  Harpies  than  remain  to  '  glad  the  heart  of  a  mean- 
er man'  (Od.  XX.,  82)  than  her  husband,  still  away  from  her." 

Only  a  careful  student  of  Homer  can  quite  realize  the  dip- 
lomatic astuteness  which  inspired  this  sketch  of  Homeric 
morals.  Its  amazing  sophistry  can,  however,  be  made  appar- 
ent even  to  one  who  has  never  read  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey. 


ACHILLES   AS   A    LOVER 

The  Trojan  War  lasted  ten  years.  Its  object  was  to  punish 
Paris,  son  of  the  King  of  Troy,  for  eloping  with  Helen,  the 
wife  of  Menelaus,  King  of  Sparta,  and  taking  away  a  ship- 
load of  treasures  to  boot.  The  subject  of  Homer's  Iliad  is 
popularly  supposed  to  be  this  Trojan  War  ;  in  reality,  how- 
ever, it  covers  less  than  two  months  (fifty-two  days)  of  those 
ten  years,  and  its  theme,  as  the  first  lines  indicate,  is  the 
wrath  of  Achilles — the  ruinous  wrath,  which  in  the  tenth 
year,  brought  on  the  other  Greek  warriors  woes  innumerable. 
Achilles  had  spent  much  of  the  intervening  time  in  ravaging 
twelve  cities  of  Asia  Minor,  carrying  away  treasures  and  cap- 
tive women,  after  the  piratical  Greek  custom.  One  of  these 
captives  was  Briseis,  a  high  priest's  daughter,  whose  husband 
and  three  brothers  he  had  slain  with  his  own  hand,  and  who 
became  his  favorite  concubine.  King  Agamemnon,  the  chief 
commander  of  the  Greek  forces,  also  had  for  his  favorite  con- 
cubine a  high  priest's  daughter,  named  Chryseis.  Her  father 
came  to  ransom  the  captive  girl,  but  Agamemnon  refused  to 
give  her  up  because,  as  he  confessed  with  brutal  frankness,  he 
preferred  her  to  his  wife.1  For  this  refusal  Apollo  brings  a 
pestilence  on  the  Greek  army,  which  can  be  abated  only  by 
restoring  Chryseis  to  her  father.  Agamemnon  at  last  con- 

1  Which,  however,  evidently  was  not  saying  much,  as  he  immediately  added 
that  he  was  ready  to  give  her  up  provided  they  gave  him  another  girl,  lest  he  be 
the  only  one  of  the  Greeks  without  a  "prize  of  honor."  Strong  individual 
preference,  as  we  shall  see  also  in  the  case  of  Achilles,  was  not  a  trait  of 
"  heroic  "  Greek  love. 


ACHILLES    AS    A    LOVER  737 

sents,  on  condition  that  some  other  prize  of  honor  be  given 
to  him — though,  us  Thersites  taunts  him  (II.,  22G-228),  his 
tents  are  already  full  of  captive  women,  among  whom  he  al- 
ways has  had  first  choice.  Achilles,  too,  informs  him  that  he 
shall  have  all  the  women  he  wants  when  Troy  is  taken  ;  hut 
what  really  hurts  Agamemnon's  feelings  is  not  so  much  the 
lass  of  his  favorite  as  the  thought  that  the  hated  Achilles 
should  enjoy  Briseis,  while  his  prize,  Chryseis,  must  be  re- 
turned to  her  father.  So  he  threatens  to  retaliate  on  Achilles 
by  taking  Briseis  from  his  tent  and  keeping  her  for  himself. 
"1  would  deserve  the  name  of  coward,"  retorts  Achilles 
"  were  I  to  yield  to  you  in  everything.  .  .  .  But  this  let 
me  say — Never  shall  I  lift  my  arm  to  strive  for  the  girl  either 
with  you  or  any  other  man  ;  you  gave  her,  you  can  take  her. 
But  of  all  else,  by  the  dark  ship,  that  belongs  to  me,  thereof 
you  shall  not  take  anything  against  my  will.  Do  that  and  all 
shall  see  your  black  blood  trickle  down  my  spear." 

Having  made  this  "  uucowardly,"  chivalrous,  and  romantic 
distinction  between  his  two  kinds  of  property — yielding 
Briseis,  but  threatening  murder  if  aught  else  belonging  to  him 
be  touched — Achilles  goes  and  orders  his  friend  Patroclus  to 
take  the  young  woman  from  the  tent  and  give  her  to  the  king. 
She  leaves  her  paramour — her  husband's  and  brothers'  mur- 
derer— unwillingly,  and  he  sits  down  and  weeps — why  ?  be- 
cause, as  he  tells  his  mother,  he  has  been  insulted  by  Aga- 
memnon, who  has  taken  away  his  prize  of  honor.  From  that 
moment  Achilles  refuses  to  join  the  assemblies,  or  take  a  part 
in  the  battles,  thus  bringing  "  woes  innumerable "  on  his 
countrymen.  He  refuses  to  yield  even  after  Agamemnon, 
alarmed  by  his  reverses,  seeks  to  conciliate  him  by  offering 
him  gold  and  horses  and  women  in  abundance ;  telling  him 
he  shall  have  back  his  Briseis,  whom  the  king  swears  he  has 
never  touched,  and,  besides  her,  seven  Lesbian  women  of 
more  than  human  beauty  ;  also,  the  choice  of  twenty  Trojan 
women  as  soon  as  the  city  capitulates  ;  and,  in  addition  to 
these,  one  of  the  three  princesses,  his  own  daughters — twenty- 
nine  women  in  all  ! 

Must  not  a  hero  who  so  stubbornly  and  wrathfully  resented 


738          GREEK    LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

the  seizure  of  his  concubine  have  been  deeply  in  love  with 
her  ?  He  himself  remarks  to  Odysseus,  who  comes  to  at- 
tempt a  reconciliation  (IX.,  340-44) :  "  Do  the  sons  of 
Atreus  alone  of  mortal  men  love  their  bedfellows  ?  Every 
man  who  is  good  and  sensible  loves  his  concubine  and  cares 
for  her  as  I  too  love  mine  with  all  my  heart,  though  but  the 
captive  of  my  spear."  Gladstone  here  translates  the  word 
aXo^os  "  wife/7  though,  as  far  as  Achilles  is  concerned,  it 
means  concubine.  Of  course  it  would  have  been  awkward  for 
England's  Prime  Minister  to  make  Achilles  say  thaf;  "  every 
man  must  love  his  concubine,  if  he  has  sense  and  .virtue  ; " 
so  he  arbitrarily  changes  the  meaning  of  the  word  and  then 
begs  us  to  notice  the  moral  beauty  of  this  sentiment  and  the 
" dignity"  of  the  relation  between  Achilles  and  Briseis  ! 
Yet  no  one  seems  to  have  denounced  him  for  this  transgres- 
sion against  ethics,  philology,  and  common  sense.  On  the 
contrary,  a  host  of  translators  and  commentators  have  done 
the  same  thing,  to  the  obscuration  of  the  truth. 

Nor  is  this  all.  When  we  examine  what  the  Achilles  of 
Homer  means  by  the  fine  phrase  "  every  man  loves  his  bedfel- 
low as  I  love  mine,"  we  come  across  a  grotesque  parody  even 
of  sensual  infatuation,  not  to  speak  of  romantic  love.  If 
Achilles  had  been  animated  by  the  strong  individual  prefer- 
ence which  sometimes  results  even  from  animal  passion,  he 
would  not  have  told  Agamemnon,  "take  Briseis,  but  don't 
you  dare  to  touch  any  of  my  other  property  or  I  will  smash 
your  skull."  If  he  had  been  what  we  understand  by  a  lover, 
he  would  not  have  been  represented  by  the  poet,  after  Briseis 
was  taken  away  from  him,  as  having  "his heart  consumed  by 
grief"  because  "he  yearned  for  the  battle."  He  would,  in- 
stead, have  yearned  for  the  girl.  And  when  Agamemnon 
offered  to  give  her  back  untouched,  Achilles,  had  he  been  a 
real  lover,  would  have  thrown  pride  and  wrath  to  the  winds 
and  accepted  the  offer  with  eagerness  and  alacrity. 

But  the  most  amazing  part  of  the  story  is  reached  when 
we  ask  what  Achilles  means  when  he  says  that  every  good  and 
sensible  man  <£iA.cei  KOL  K^Serai — loves  and  cherishes — his  con- 
cubine, as  he  professes  to  love  his  own.  How  does  he  love 


ACHILLES  AS  A   LOVER  739 

Briseis  ?  Patroclus  had  promised  her  (XIX.,  297-99),  prob- 
ably for  reasons  of  his  own  (she  is  represented  as  being  ex- 
tremely fond  of  him),  to  see  to  it  that  Achilles  would  ulti- 
mately make  her  his  legitimate  wife,  but  Achilles  himself 
never  dreams  of  such  a  thing,  as  we  see  in  lines  393-400,  book 
IX.  After  refusing  the  offer  of  one  of  Agamemnon's  daugh- 
ters, he  goes  on  to  remark  :  "If  the  gods  preserve  me  and 
I  return  to  my  home,  Peleus  himself  will  seek  a  wife  for  me. 
There  are  many  Achaian  maidens  in  Hellas  and  Phthia, 
daughters  of  city-protecting  princes.  Among  these  I  shall 
select  the  one  I  desire  to  be  my  dear  wife.  Very  often  is  my 
manly  heart  moved  with  longing  to  be  there  to  take  a  wedded 
wife  (/j.vr)<TTr)v  oAo^ov),  and  enjoy  the  possessions  Peleus  has 
gathered."  And  if  any  further  detail  were  needed  to  prove 
how  utterly  shallow,  selfish,  and  sensual  was  his  "love"  of 
Briseis,  we  should  find  it  a  few  lines  later  (663)  where  the 
poet  naively  tells  us,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  "  Achilles 
slept  in  the  innermost  part  of  the  tent  and  by  his  side  lay  a 
beautiful-cheeked  woman,  whom  he  had  brought  from  Lesbos. 
On  the  other  side  lay  Patroclus  with  the  fair  Isis  by  his  side, 
the  gift  of  Achilles."  Obviously  even  individual  preference 
was  not  a  strong  ingredient  in  the  "  love"  of  these  "heroes," 
and  we  may  well  share  the  significant  surprise  of  Ajax  (638) 
that  Achilles  should  persist  in  his  wrath  when  seven  girls  were 
offered  him  for  one.  Evidently  the  tent  of  Achilles,  like 
that  of  Agamemnon,  was  full  of  women  (in  line  366  he  es- 
pecially refers  to  his  assortment  of  "fair-girdled  women" 
whom  he  expects  to  take  home  when  the  war  is  over) ;  yet 
Gladstone  had  the  audacity  to  write  that  though  concubinage 
prevailed  in  the  camp  before  Troy,  it  was  "  only  single  con- 
cubinage." In  his  larger  treatise  he  goes  so  far  as  to  apolo- 
gize for  these  ruffians — who  captured  and  traded  off  women 
•as  they  would  horses  or  cows — on  the  ground  that  they  were 
away  from  their  wives  and  were  indulging  in  the  "mildest 
and  least  licentious  "  of  all  forms  of  adultery  !  Yet  Gladstone 
was  personally.one  of  the  purest  and  noblest  of  men.  Strange 
what  somersaults  a  hobby  ridden  too  hard  may  induce  a  man 
to  make  in  his  ethical  attitude  ! 


740          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

ODYSSEUS,    LIBERTINE   AND    EUFFIAN 

If  we  now  turn  from  the  hero  of  the  Iliad  to  the  hero  of 
the  Odyssey,  we  find  the  same  Gladstone  declaring  (II.,  502) 
that  "  while  admitting  the  superior  beauty  of  Calypso  as  an 
immortal,  Ulysses  frankly  owns  to  her  that  his  heart  is  pin- 
ing every  day  for  Penelope  ; "  and  in  the  shorter  treatise  he 
goes  so  far  as  to  say  (131),  that  "the  subject  of  the  Odyssey 
gives  Homer  the  opportunity  of  setting  forth  the  domestic 
character  of  Odusseus,  in  his  profound  attachment  to  wife, 
child,  and  home,  in  such  a  way  as  to  adorn  not  only  the  hero, 
but  his  age  and  race." 

The  "profound  attachment"  of  Odysseus  to  his  wife  may 
be  gauged  in  the  first  place  by  the  fact  that  he  voluntarily 
remained  away  from  her  ten  years,  fighting  to  recover,  for 
another  king,  a  worthless,  adulterous  wench.  Before  leaving 
on  this  expedition,  from  which  he  feared  he  might  never  re- 
turn, he  spoke  to  his  wife,  as  she  herself  relates  (XVIII., 
269),  begging  her  to  be  mindful  of  his  father  and  mother, 
"and  when  you  see  our  son  a  bearded  man,  then  marry  whom 
you  will,  and  leave  the  house  now  yours" — namely  for  the 
benefit  of  the  son,  for  whose  welfare  he  was  thus  more  con- 
cerned than  for  a  monopoly  of  his  wife's  love. 

After  the  Trojan  war  was  ended  he  embarked  for  home, 
but  suffered  a  series  of  shipwrecks  and  misfortunes.  On  the 
island  of  ^Eaaa  he  spent  a  whole  year  sharing  the  hospitality 
and  bed  of  the  beautiful  sorceress  Circe,  with  no  pangs  of 
conscience  for  such  conduct,  nor  thought  of  home,  till  his 
comrades,  in  spite  of  the  "  abundant  meat  and  pleasant 
wine,"  longed  to  depart  and  admonished  him  in  these  words  : 
"  Unhappy  man,  it  is  time  to  think  of  your  native  land,  if 
you  are  destined  ever  to  be  saved  and  to  reach  your  home  in 
the  land  of  your  fathers."  Thus  they  spoke  and  "  persuaded' 
his  manly  heart."  In  view  of  the  ease  with  which  he  thus 
abandoned  himself  for  a  whole  yeaf  to  a  life  of  indulgence, 
till  his  comrades  prodded  his  conscience,  we  may  infer  that 
he  was  not  so  very  unwilling  a  prisoner  afterward,  of  the 
beautiful  nymph  Calypso,  who  held  him  eight  years  by  force 


ODYSSEUS,    LIBERTINE   AND   RUFFIAN        741 

on  her  island.  We  read,  indeed,  that,  at  the  expiration  of 
these  years,  Odysseus  was  always  weeping,  and  his  sweet  life 
ebbed  away  in  longing  for  his  home.  But  all  the  sentiment 
is  taken  out  of  this  by  the  words  which  follow  :  cVel  oiWri 
r/j/Sou/e  i/u/x<£>7 — "because  the  nymph  pleased  him  no  more!" 
Even  so  Tannhauser  tired  of  the  pleasures  in  the  grotto  of 
Venus,  and  begged  to  be  allowed  to  leave. 

While  thus  permitting  himself  the  unrestrained  indulgence 
of  his  passions,  without  a  thought  of  his  wife,  Odysseus  has 
the  barbarian's  stern  notions  regarding  the  duties  of  women 
who  belong  to  him.  There  are  fifty  young  women  in  his 
palace  at  home  who  ply  their  hard  tasks  and  bear  the  ser^ 
vant's  lot.  Twelve  of  these,  having  no  one  to  marry,  yield 
to  the  temptations  of  the  rich  princes  who  sue  for  the  hand 
of  Penelope  in  the  absence  of  her  husband. 

Ulysses,  on  his  return,  hears  of  this,  and  forthwith  takes 
measures  to  ascertain  who  the  guilty  ones  are.  Then  he  tells 
his  son  Telemachus  and  the  swineherd  and  neatherd  to  "go 
and  lead  forth  these  serving-maids  out  of  the  stately  hall  to  a 
spot  between  the  roundhouse  and  the  neat  courtyard  wall, 
and  smite  them  with  your  long  swords  till  yon  take  life  from 
all,  so  that  they  may  forget  their  secret  amours  with  the 
suitors."  The  "discreet"  Telemachus  carried  out  these 
orders,  leading  the  maids  to  a  place  whence  there  was  no  es- 
cape and  exclaiming  : 

"  (  By  no  honorable  death  would  I  take  away  the  lives  of 
those  who  poured  reproaches  on  my  head  and  011  my  mother, 
and  lay  beside  the  suitors/ '' 

"  He  spoke  and  tied  the  cable  of  a  dark-bowed  ship  to  a 
great  pillar,  then  lashed  it  to  the  roundhouse,  stretching  it 
high  across,  too  high  for  one  to  touch  the  feet  upon  the 
ground.  And  as  the  wide-winged  thrushes  or  the  doves  strike 
on  a  net  set  in  the  bushes  ;  and  when  they  think  to  go  to 
roost  a  cruel  bed  receives  them  ;  even  so  the  women  held  their 
heads  in  line,  and  around  every  neck  a  noose  was  laid  that 
they  might  die  most  vilely.  They  twitched  their  feet  a  little, 
but  not  long." 

A  more  dastardly,  cowardly,  unmanly  deed  is  not  on  record 
in  all  human  literature,  yet  the  instigator  of  it,  Odysseus,  is 


742          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

always  the  "  wise/7  ' '  royal/'  "  princely/'  "  good/'  and  "  god- 
like," and  there  is  not  the  slightest  hint  that  the  great  poe^ 
views  his  assassination  of  the  poor  maidens  as  the  act  of  a 
ruffian,  an  act  the  more  monstrous  and  unpardonable  because 
Homer  (XXII.,  37)  makes  Odysseus  himself  say  to  the  suit- 
ors that  they  outraged  his  maids  by  force  (/&<ua>s).  What 
world-wide  difference  in  this  respect  between  the  greatest 
poet  of  antiquity  and  Jesus  of  Nazareth  who,  when  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  brought  before  him  a  woman  who  had 
erred  like  the  maids  of  Odysseus,  and  asked  if  she  should 
be  stoned  as  the  law  of  Moses  commanded,  said  unto  them, 
"  He  that  is  without  sin  among  you,  let  him  first  cast  a  stone 
at  her ; "  whereupon,  being  convicted  by  their  own  con- 
sciences, they  went  out  one  by  one.  And  Jesus  said,  "  Where 
are  those  thine  accusers  ?  Hath  no  man  condemned  thee  ?  " 
She  said,  "  No  man,  Lord."  And  Jesus  said  unto  her, 
"  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee  ;  go,  and  sin  no  more."  He  is 
lenient  to  the  sinner  because  of  his  sense  of  justice  and 
mercy ;  yet  at  the  same  time  his  ethical  ideal  is  infinitely 
higher  than  Homer's.  He  preaches  that  "  whosoever  looketh 
on  a  woman  to  lust  after  her  hath  committed  adultery  with 
her  already  in  his  heart ; "  whereas  Homer's  ideas  of  sexual 
morality  are,  in  the  last  analysis,  hardly  above  those  of  a  sav- 
age. The  dalliance  of  Odysseus  with  the  nymphs,  and  the 
licentious  treatment  of  women  captives  by  all  the  "  heroes," 
do  not,  any  more  than  the  cowardly  murder  of  the  twelve 
maids,  evoke  a  word  of  censure,  disgust,  or  disapproval  from 
his  lips. 

His  gods  are  on  the  same  low  level  as  his  heroes,  if  not 
lower.  When  the  spouse  of  Zeus,  king  of  the  gods,  wishes  to 
beguile  him,  she  knows  no  other  way  than  borrowing  the 
girdle  of  Aphrodite.  But  this  scene  (Iliad,  XIV.,  153  seq.)  is 
innocuous  compared  with  the  shameless  description  of  the 
adulterous  amours  of  Ares  and  Aphrodite  in  the  Odyssey 
(VIII.,  266-365),  in  presence  of  the  gods,  who  treat  the  mat- 
ter as  a  great  joke.  For  a  parallel  to  this  passage  we  would 
have  to  descend  to  the  Botocudos  or  the  most  degraded  Aus- 
tralians. All  of  which  proves  that  the  severity  of  the  pun- 


WAS   PENELOPE   A   MODEL   WIFE?  743 

ishmcnt  inflicted  on  the  twelve  maids  of  Odysseus  does  not 
indicate  a  high  regard  for  chastity,  but  is  simply  another  il- 
lustration of  typical  barbarous  fury  against  women  for  pre- 
suming to  do  anything  without  the  consent  of  the  man  whose 
private  property  they  are. 

WAS   PENELOPE   A    MODEL   WIFE  ? 

If  the  real  Odysseus,  unprincipled,  unchivalrous,  and  cruel, 
is  anything  but  a  hero  who  "  adorns  his  age  and  race,"  must 
it  not  be  conceded,  at  any  rate,  that  "  the  unwearied  fidelity 
of  Penelope,  awaiting  through  the  long  revolving  years  the 
return  of  her  storm-tossed  husband,"  presents,  as  Lecky  de- 
clares (II.,  279),  and  as  is  commonly  supposed,  a  picture  of 
perennial  beauty  "  which  Rome  and  Christendom,  chivalry 
and  modern  civilization,  have  neither  eclipsed  nor  tran- 
scended ?  " 

We  have  seen  that  the  fine  words  of  Achilles  regarding  his 
"  love  "  of  Briseis  are,  when  confronted  with  his  actions,  re- 
duced to  empty  verbiage.  The  same  result  is  reached  in  the 
case  of  Penelope,  if  we  subject  her  actions  and  motives  to  a 
searching  critical  analysis.  Ostensibly,  indeed,  she  is  set  up 
as  a  model  of  that  feminine  constancy  which  men  at  all  times 
have  insisted  on  while  they  themselves  preferred  to  be  models 
of  inconstancy.  As  usual  in  such  cases,  the  feminine  model 
is  painted  with  touches  of  almost  grotesque  exaggeration. 
After  the  return  of  Odysseus  Penelope  informed  her  nurse 
(XXIII.,  18)  that  she  has  not  slept  soundly  all  this  time — 
twenty  years  !  Such  phrases,  too,  are  used  as  "  longing  for 
Odysseus,  I  waste  my  heart  away,"  or  "  May  I  go  to  my  dread 
grave  seeing  Odysseus  still,  and  never  gladden  heart  of 
meaner  husband."  But  they  are  mere  phrases.  The  truth 
about  her  attitude  and  her  feelings  is  told  frankly  in  several 
places  by  three  different  persons — the  goddess  of  wisdom, 
Telemachus,  and  Penelope  herself.  Athene  urges  Telema- 
chus  to  make  haste  that  he  may  find  his  blameless  mother 
still  at  home  instead  of  the  bride  of  one  of  the  suitors.  "  But 
let  her  not  against  your  will  take  treasure  from  your  home. 


744  GREEK    LOVE-STORIES   AND    POEMS 

You  know  a  woman's  way  ;  she  strives  to  enrich  his  house 
who  marries  her,  while  of  her  former  children  and  the  hus- 
band of  her  youth,  when  he  is  dead  she  thinks  not,  and  she 
talks  of  him  no  more"  (XV.,  15-23).  In  the  next  book 
(73-77)  Telemachus  says  to  the  swineherd  :  "  Moreover  my 
mother's  feeling  wavers,  whether  to  bide  beside  me  here  and 
keep  the  house,  and  thus  revere  her  husband's  bed  and  heed 
the  public  voice,  or  finally  to  follow  some  chief  of  the  Achai- 
ans  who  woos  her  in  the  hall  with  largest  gifts."  And  a  lit- 
tle later  (126)  he  exclaims,  "  She  neither  declines  the  hated 
suit  nor  has  she  power  to  end  it,  while  they  with  feasting 
impoverish  my  home." 

These  words  of  Telemachus  are  endorsed  in  full  by  Penel- 
ope herself,  whose  remarks  (XIX.,  524-35)  to  the  disguised 
Odysseus  give  us  the  key  to  the  whole  situation  and  explain 
why  she  lies  abed  so  much  weeping  and  not  knowing  what  to 
do." 

" .  .  .  so  does  my  doubtful  heart  toss  to  and  fro  whether 
to  bide  beside  my  son  and  keep  all  here  in  safety — my  goods, 
my  maids,  and  my  great  high-roofed  house — and  thus  revere 
my  husband  and  heed  the  public  voice,  or  finally  to  follow 
some  chief  of  the  Achaiians  who  woos  me  in  my  hall  with 
countless  gifts.  My  son,  while  but  a  child  and  slack  of 
understanding,  did  not  permit  my  marrying  and  departing 
from  my  husband's  home  ;  but  now  that  he  is  grown  and 
come  to  man's  estate,  he  prays  me  to  go  home  again  and  leave 
the  hall,  so  troubled  is  he  for  that  substance  which  the  Achai- 
ians waste." 

If  these  words  mean  anything,  they  mean  that  what  kept 
Penelope  from  marrying  again  was  not  affection  for  her  hus- 
band but  the  desire  to  live  up  to  the  demands  of  "  the  public 
voice"  and  the  fact  that  her  son — who,  according  to  Greek 
usage,  was  her  master — would  not  permit  her  to  do  so. 
This,  then,  was  the  cause  of  that  proverbial  constancy  !  But 
a  darker  shadow  still  is  cast  on  her  much-vaunted  affection 
by  her  cold  and  suspicious  reception  of  her  husband  on  his 
return.  While  the  dog  recognized  him  at  once  and  the  swine- 
herd was  overjoyed,  she,  the  wife,  held  him  aloof,  fearing 
that  he  might  be  some  man  who  had  come  to  cheat  her  !  At 


HECTOR    AND   ANDROMACHE  745 

first  Odysseus  thought  she  scorned  him  hecause  he  "was 
foul  and  dressed  in  sorry  clothes  ; "  but  even  after  he  had 
bathed  and  put  on  his  princely  attire  she  refused  to  embrace 
him,  because  she  wished  to  "  prove  her  husband  !  "  No  won- 
der that  her  son  declared  that  her  "  heart  is  always  harder 
than  a  stone/'  and  that  Odysseus  himself  thus  accosts  her  : 

"  Lady,  a  heart  impenetrable  beyond  the  sex  of  women  the 
dwellers  on  Olympus  gave  you.  There  is  no  other  woman  of 
such  stubborn  spirit  to  stand  off  from  the  husband  who,  after 
many  grievous  toils,  came  in  the  twentieth  year  home  to  his 
native  land.  Come  then,  good  nurse,  and  make  my  bed,  that 
I  may  lie  alone.  For  certainly  of  iron  is  the  heart  within 
her  breast." 

HECTOR    AND    ANDROMACHE 

A  much  closer  approximation  to  the  modern  ideal  of  con- 
jugal love  than  the  attachment  between  Odysseus  and  Penel- 
ope with  the  "heart  of  iron,"  may  be  found  in  the  scene 
describing  Hector's  leave-taking  of  Andromache  before  he 
goes  out  to  fight  the  Greeks,  fearing  he  may  never  return. 
The  serving-women  inform  him  that  his  wife,  hearing  that 
the  Trojans  were  hard  pressed,  had  gone  in  haste  to  the  wall, 
like  unto  one  frenzied.  He  goes  to  find  her  and  when  lie 
arrives  at  the  Skaian  gates,  she  comes  running  to  meet  him, 
together  with  the  nurse,  who  holds  his  infant  boy  on  her 
bosom.  Andromache  weeps,  recalls  to  his  mind  that  she  had 
lost  her  father,  mother,  and  seven  brothers,  wherefore  he  is 
to  her  a  father,  mother,  brothers,  as  well  as  a  husband. 
"  Have  pity  and  abide  here  upon  the  tower,  lest  thou  make 
thy  child  an  orphan  and  thy  wife  a  widow."  Though  Hector 
cannot  think  of  shrinking  from  battle  like  a  coward,  he 
declared  that  her  fate,  should  the  city  fall  and  he  be  slain, 
troubles  him  more  than  that  of  his  father,  mother,  and  broth- 
ers— the  fate  of  being  led  into  captivity  and  slavery  by  a 
Greek,  doomed  to  carry  water  and  to  be  pointed  at  as  the 
former  wife  of  the  brave  Hector.  He  expresses  the  wish  that 
his  boy — who  at  first  is  frightened  by  the  horse-hair  crest  on 
his  helmet — may  become  greater  than  his  father,  bringing 


746          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

with  him  blood-stained  spoils  from  the  enemy  he  has  slain, 
and  gladdening  his  mother's  heart ;  then  caressing  his  wife 
with  his  hand,  he  begs  her  not  to  sorrow  overmuch,  but  to  go 
to  her  house  and  see  to  her  own  tasks,  the  loom  and  the  dis- 
taff. Thus  he  spake,  and  she  departed  for  her  home,  oft 
looking  back  and  letting  fall  big  tears. 

This  scene,  which  takes  up  four  pages  of  the  Iliad  (VI., 
370-502),  is  the  most  touching,  the  most  inspired,  the  most 
sentimental  and  modern  passage  not  only  in  the  Homeric 
poems,  but  in  all  Greek  literature.  Benecke  has  aptly  re- 
marked (10)  that  the  relation  between  Hector  and  Androm* 
ache  is  unparalleled  in  that  literature ;  and  he  adds  :  *'  At 
the  same  time,  how  little  really  sympathetic  to  the  Greek  of 
the  period  was  this  wonderful  and  unique  passage  is.  suffi- 
ciently shown  by  this  very  fact,  that  no  attempt  was  ever 
made  to  imitate  or  develop  it.  It  may  sound  strange  to  say 
so,  but  in  all  probability  we  to-day  understand  Andromache 
better  than  did  the  Greeks,  for  whom  she  was  created  ;  bet- 
ter, too,  perhaps  than  did  her  creator  himself."  Benecke 
should  have  written  Hector  in  place  of  Andromache.  There 
was  no  difficulty,  even  for  a  Greek,  in  understanding  Androm- 
ache. She  had  every  reason,  even  from  a  purely  selfish 
point  of  view,  to  dread  Hector's  battling  with  the  savage 
Greeks  ;  for  while  he  lived  she  was  a  princess,  with  all  the 
comforts  of  life,  whereas  his  fall  and  the  fall  of  Troy  meant 
her  enslavement  and  a  life  of  misery.  What  makes  the  scene 
in  question  so  modern  is  the  attitude  of  Hector — his  dividing 
his  caresses  equally  between  his  wife  and  his  son,  and  assuring 
her  that  he  is  more  troubled  about  her  fate  and  anguish  than 
about  what  may  befall  his  father,  mother,  and  brothers. 
That  is  an  utterly  un-Greek  sentiment,  and  that  is  the  reason 
why  the  passage  was  not  imitated.  It  was  not  a  realistic 
scene  from  life,  but  a  mere  product  of  Homer's  imagination 
and  glowing  genius — like  the  pathetic  scene  in  which  Odys- 
seus wipes  away  a  tear  on  noting  that  his  faithful  dog  Argos 
recognized  him  and  wagged  his  tail.  It  is  extremely  improb- 
able that  a  man  who  could  behave  so  cruelly  toward  women 
as  Odysseus  did  could  have  thus  sympathized  with  a  dog. 


BARBAROUS  TREATMENT  OF  GREEK  WOMEN  747 

Certainly  no  one  else  did,  not  even  his  "  faithful  "  Penelope. 
As  long  as  Argos  was  useful  in  the  chase,  the  poet  tells  us,  he 
was  well  taken  care  of  ;  but  now  that  he  was  old,  he  "  lay 
neglected  upon  a  pile  of  dung,"  doomed  to  starve,  for  he  had 
not  strength  to  move.  Homer  alone,  with  the  prophetic  in- 
sight of  a  genius,  could  have  conceived  such  a  touch  of  mod- 
ern sentiment  toward  animals,  so  utterly  foreign  to  ancient 
ideas ;  and  he  alone  could  have  put  such  a  sentiment  of  wife- 
love  into  the  mouth  of  the  Trojan  Hector — a  barbarian  whose 
ideal  of  manliness  arid  greatness  consisted  in  "bringing  home 
blood-stained  spoils  of  the  enemy. " 


BARBAROUS   TREATMENT   OF   GREEK   WOMEN 

It  seems  like  a  touch  of  sarcasm  that  Homer  incarnates 
his  isolated  and  un-Greek  ideal  of  devotion  to  a  wife  in  a 
Trojan,  as  if  to  indicate  that  it  must  not  be  accepted  as  a 
touch  of  Greek  life.  From  our  point  of  view  it  is  a  stroke  of 
genius.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  obvious  that  attributing 
such  a  sentiment  to  a  Trojan  likewise  cannot  be  anything 
but  a  poetic  license  ;  for  these  Trojans  were  quite  as  piratical, 
coarse,  licentious,  and  polygamous  as  the  Greeks,  Hector's 
own  father  having  had  fifty  children,  nineteen  of  whom  were 
borne  by  his  wife,  thirty-one  by  various  concubines.  Many 
pages  of  the  Iliad  bear  witness  to  the  savage  ferocity  of  Greeks 
and  Trojans  alike — a  ferocity  utterly  incompatible  with  such 
tender  emotions  as  Homer  himself  was  able  to  conceive  in  his 
imagination.  The  ferocity  of  Achilles  is  typical  of  the  feelings 
of  these  heroes.  Not  content  with  slaughtering  an  enemy 
who  meets  him  in  honorable  battle,  defending  his  wife  and 
home,  he  thrust  thongs  of  ox-hide  through  the  prostrate 
Hector's  feet,  bound  him  to  his  chariot,  lashed  his  horses  to 
speed,  and  dragged  him  about  in  sight  of  the  wailing  wife 
and  parents  of  his  victim.  This  he  repeated  several  times, 
aggravating  the  atrocity  a  hundredfold  by  his  intention — in 
spite  of  the  piteous  entreaties  of  the  dying  Hector — to  throw 
his  corpse  to  be  eaten  by  the  dogs,  thus  depriving  even  his 
spirit  of  rest,  and  his  family  of  religious  consolation.  Nay, 


748          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

Achilles  expresses  the  savage  wish  that  his  rage  might  lead 
him  so  far  as  to  carve  and  eat  raw  Hector's  flesh.  The 
Homeric  "  hero,"  in  short,  is  almost  on  a  level  in  cruelty 
with  the  red  Indian. 

But  it  is  in  their  treatment  of  women — which  Gladstone 
commends  so  highly — that  the  barbarous  nature  of  the 
Greek  "heroes"  is  revealed  in  all  its  hideous  nakedness. 
The  king  of  their  gods  set  them  the  example  when  he 
punished  his  wife  and  queen  by  hanging  her  up  amid  the 
clouds  with  two  anvils  suspended  from  her  feet ;  clutching 
and  throwing  to  the  earth  any  gods  that  came  to  her  rescue. 
(Iliad,  XV.,  15-24.)  Rank  does  not  exempt  the  women  of 
the  heroic  age  from  slavish  toil.  Nausicaa,  though  a  princess, 
does  the  work  of  a  washerwoman  and  drives  her  own  chariot 
to  the  laundry  on  the  banks  of  the  river,  her  only  advantage 
over  her  maids  being  that  they  have  to  walk.1  Her  mother, 
too,  queen  of  the  Phoeaceans,  spends  her  time  sitting  among 
the  waiting  maids  spinning  yarn,  while  her  husband  sits  idle 
and  "sips  his  wine  like  an  immortal."  The  women  have  to 
do  all  the  work  to  make  the  men  comfortable,  even  washing 
their  feet,  giving  them  their  bath,  anointing  them,  and  put- 
ting their  clothes  on  them  again  (Odyssey,  XIX.,  317  ;  VIII., 
454  ;  XVIL,  88,  etc.),2  even  a  princess  like  Polycaste,  daugh- 
ter of  the  divine  Nestor,  being  called  upon  to  perform  such 
menial  service  (III.,  464-67).  As  for  the  serving-maids, 
they  grind  corn,  fetch  water,  and  do  other  work,  just  like 
red  squaws  ;  and  in  the  house  of  Odysseus  we  read  of  a  poor 
girl,  who,  while  the  others  were  sleeping,  was  still  toiling  at 
her  corn  because  her  weakness  had  prevented  her  from  finish- 
ing her  task  (XX.,  110). 

Penelope  was  a  queen,  but  was  very  far  from  being  treated 
like  one.  Gladstone  found  "  the  strongest  evidence  of  the 

»I  have  already  commented  (115)  on  Nausicaa's  lack  of  feminine  delicacy 
and  coyness;  yet  Gladstone  says  (132)  "it  may  almost  be  questioned  whether 
anywhere  in  literature  there  is  to  be  found  a  conception  of  the  maiden  so  per- 
fect as  Nausicaa  in  grace,  tenderness,  and  delicacy  "  ! 

2  How  Gladstone  reconciled  his  conscience  with  these  lines  when  he  wrote 
(112)  that  "on  one  important  and  characteristic  subject,  the  exposure  of  the 
person  to  view,  the  men  of  that  time  had  a  peculiar  and  fastidious  delicacy,"  I 
cannot  conceive. 


BARBAROUS  TREATMENT  OF  GREEK  WOMEN  749 

respect  in  which  women  were  held  "  in  the  fact  that  the 
suitors  stopped  short  of  violence  to  her  person  !  They  did 
everything  but  that,  making  themselves  at  home  in  her 
house,  unbidden  and  hated  guests,  debauching  her  maid- 
servants, and  consuming  her  provisions  by  wholesale.  But 
her  own  son's  attitude  is  hardly  less  disrespectful  and  in- 
sulting than  that  of  the  ungallant,  impertinent  suitors.  He 
repeatedly  tells  his  mother  to  mind  her  own  business — the 
loom  and  the  distaff — leaving  words  for  men  ;  and  each 
time  the  poet  recommends  this  rude,  imfilial  speech  as  a 
"  wise  saying"  which  the  queen  humbly  "  lays  to  heart." 
His  love  of  property  far  exceeds  his  love  of  his  mother,  for 
as  soon  as  he  is  grown  up  he  begs  her  to  go  home  and  get 
married  again,  "  so  troubled  is  he  for  the  substance  which 
the  suitors  waste."  He  urges  her  at  last  to  "  marry  whom 
she  will,"  offering  as  an  extra  inducement  "countless  gifts" 
if  she  will  only  go. 

To  us  it  seems  topsy-turvy  that  a  mother  should  have  to 
ask  her  son's  consent  to  marry  again,  but  to  the  Greeks  that 
was  a  matter  of  course.  There  are  many  references  to  this 
custom  in  the  Homeric  poems.  Girls,  too,  though  they  be 
princesses,  are  disposed  of  without  the  least  regard  to  their 
wishes,  as  when  Agamemnon  offers  Achilles  the  choice  of  one 
of  his  three  daughters  (IX.,  145).  Big  sums  are  sometimes 
paid  for  a  girl — by  Iphidamas,  for  instance,  who  fell  in  bat- 
tle, "far  from  his  bride,  of  whom  he  had  known  no  joy,  and 
much  had  he  given  for  her  ;  first  a  hundred  kine  he  gave,  and 
thereafter  promised  a  thousand,  goats  and  sheep  together." 
The  idea,  too,  occurs  over  and  over  again  that  among  the 
suitors  the  one  who  has  the  richest  gifts  to  offer  should  take 
the  bride.  How  much  this  mercenary,  unceremonious,  and 
often  cruel  treatment  of  women  was  a  matter  of  course  among 
these  Greeks  is  indicated  by  Homer's  naive  epithet  for  brides, 
irapStvoi  dA0co-i/?ouu,  "  virgins  who  bring  in  oxen."  And  this 
is  the  state  of  affairs  which  Gladstone  sums  up  by  saying 
"  there  is  a  certain  authority  of  the  man  over  the  woman  ; 
but  it  does  not  destroy  freedom  "  ! 

The  early  Greeks  were  always  fighting,  and  the  object  of 


750          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

their  wars,  as  among  the  Australian  savages,  was  usually 
woman,  as  Achilles  frankly  informs  us  when  he  speaks  of 
having  laid  waste  twelve  cities  and  passed  through  many 
bloody  days  of  battle,  "warring  with  folk  for  their  women's 
sake."  (Iliad,  IX.,  327.)  Nestor  admonishes  the  Greeks  to 
"  let  no  man  hasten  to  depart  home  till  each  have  lain  by 
some  Trojan's  wife"  (354-55).  The  leader  of  the  Greek 
forces  issues  this  command  regarding  the  Trojans :  "  Of  them 
let  not  one  escape  sheer  destruction  at  our  hands,  not  even 
the  man-child  that  the  mother  beareth  in  her  womb  ;  let  not 
even  him  escape,  but  all  perish  together  out  of  Ilios,  uncared 
for  and  unknown  "  (VI.,  57) ;  while  Homer,  with  consummate 
art,  paints  for  us  the  terrors  of  a  captured  city,  showing  how 
the  women — of  all  classes — were  maltreated  : 

"  As  a-  woman  wails  and  clings  to  her  dear  husband,  who 
falls  for  town  and  people,  seeking  to  shield  his  home  and 
children  from  the  ruthless  day  ;  seeing  him  dying,  gasping, 
she  flings  herself  on  him  with  a  piercing  cry  ;  while  men  be- 
hind, smiting  her  with  the  spears  on  back  and  shoulder,  force 
her  along  to  bondage  to  suffer  toil  and  trouble  ;  with  pain 
most  pitiful  her  cheeks  are  thin.  .  .  ."  (Odyssey,  VIII., 
523-30.)  * 

LOVE  i^  SAPPHO'S  POEMS 

Having  failed  to  find  any  traces  of  romantic  love,  and  only 
one  of  conjugal  affection,  in  the  greatest  poet  of  the  Greeks, 
let  us  now  subject  their  greatest  poetess  to  a  critical  exam- 
ination. 

Sappho  undoubtedly  had  the  divine  spark.     She  may  have 

1  It  will  always  remain  one  of  the  strangest  riddles  of  the  nineteenth  century 
why  the  statesman  who  so  often  expressed  his  righteous  indignation  over  the 
"  Bulgarian  atrocities  "  of  his  time  should  not  only  have  pardoned,  but  with  in- 
sidious and  glaring  sophistry  apologized  for  the  similar  atrocities  of  the  heroes 
whom  Homer  fancies  he  is  complimenting  when  he  calls  them  professional 
"spoilers  of  towns."  I  wish  every  reader  of  this  volume  who  has  any  doubts 
regarding  the  correctness  of  my  views  would  first  read  Gladstone's  shorter  work 
on  Homer  (a  charmingly  written  book,  with  all  its  faults),  and  then  the  epics 
themselves,  which  are  now  accessible  to  all  in  the  admirable  prose  versions  of 
the  Iliad  by  Andrew  Lang,  Walter  Leaf  and  Ernest  Myers,  and  of  the  Odyssey 
by  Professor  George  H.  Palmer  of  Harvard — versions  which  are  far  more  poetic 
than  any  translations  in  verse  ever  made  and  which  make  of  these  epics  two  of 
the  most  entertaining  novels  ever  written.  It  is  from  these  versions  that  I  have 
cited,  except  in  a  few  cases  where  I  preferred  a  more  literal  rendering  of  certain 
words. 


LOVE   IN   SAPPHO'S   POEMS  751 

possibly  deserved  the  epithet  of  the  "  tenth  Muse,"  bestowed 
on  her  by  ancient  writers,  or  of  "  the  Poetess,"  as  Homer  was 
"  the  Poet."  Among  the  one  hundred  and  seventy  frag- 
ments preserved  some  are  of  great  beauty — the  following,  for 
example,  which  is  as  delightful  as  a  Japanese  poem  and  in 
much  the  same  style — suggesting  a  picture  in  a  few  words, 
with  the  distinctness  of  a  painting :  "  As  the  sweet  apple 
blushes  on  the  end  of  the  bough,  the  very  end  of  the  bough, 
which  the  gatherers  overlooked,  nay  overlooked  not,  but  could 
not  reach." l  It  is  otherwise  in  her  love-poems,  or  rather  frag- 
ments of  such,  comprising  the  following  : 

"Now love  masters  my  limbs,  and  shakes  me,  fatal  creature, 
bitter-sweet." 

"Now  Eros  shakes  my  soul,  a  wind  on  the  mountain  fall- 
ing on  the  oaks." 

"Sleep  thou  in  the  bosom  of  thy  tender  girl-friend." 

"  Sweet  Mother,  I  cannot  weave  my  web,  broken  as  I  am 
by  longing  for  a  maiden,  at  soft  Aphrodite's  will." 

"  For  thee  there  was  no  other  girl,  bridegroom,  like  her." 

"Bitter-sweet,"  "giver  of  pain,"  "the  weaver  of  fictions," 
are  some  expressions  of  Sappho's  preserved  by  Maximus 
Tyrius ;  and  Libanius,  the  rhetorician,  refers  to  Sappho,  the 
Lesbian,  as  praying  "  that  night  might  be  doubled  for  her." 
But  the  most  important  of  her  love-poems,  and  the  one  on 
which  her  adulators  chiefly  base  their  praises,  is  the  follow- 
ing fragment  addressed  IIpos  rWcu'/ca  Epo/AeV^i/v("  to  a  beloved 
woman  ")  : 

"  That  man  seems  to  me  peer  of  gods,  who  sits  in  thy  pres- 
ence, and  hears  close  to  him  thy  sweet  speech  and  lovely  laugh- 
ter ;  that  indeed  makes  my  heart  flutter  in  my  bosom.  For 
when  I  see  thee  but  a  little  I  have  no  utterance  left,  my 
tongue  is  broken  down,  and  straightway  a  subtle  fire  has  run 
under  my  skin,  with  my  eyes  I  have  no  sight,  my  ears  ring, 
sweat  bathes  me,  and  a  trembling  seizes  all  my  body ;  I  am 
paler  than  grass,  and  seem  in  my  madness  little  better  than 
one  dead.  But  I  must  dare  all,  since  one  so  poor  .  .  . 

1  In  all  the  extracts  here  made  I  follow  the  close  literal  prose  version  made 
by  H.  T.  Wharton,  in  his  admirable  book  on  Sappho,  by  far  the  best  in  the 
English  language. 


752  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES  AND   POEMS 

The  Platonist  Longinus  (third  century)  said  that  this  ode 
was  "  not  one  passion,  but  a  congress  of  passions/'  and  declared 
it  the  most  perfect  expression  in  all  ancient  literature  of  the 
effects  of  love.  A  Greek  physician  is  said  to  have  copied  it 
into  his  book  of  diagnoses  "  as  a  compendium  of  all  the 
symptoms  of  corroding  emotion."  F.  B.  Jevons,  in  his  his- 
tory of  Greek  literature  (139),  speaks  of  the  "  marvellous 
fidelity  in  her  representation  of  the  passion  of  love."  Long 
before  him  Addison  had  written  in  the  Spectator  (No.  223) 
that  Sappho  "felt  the  passion  in  all  its  warmth,  and  de- 
scribed it  in  all  its  symptoms."  Theodore  Watts  wrote  : 
"Never  before  these  songs  were  sung,  and  never  since,  did 
the  human  soul,  in  the  grip  of  a  fiery  passion,  utter  a  cry 
like  hers."  That  amazing  prodigal  of  superlatives,  the  poet 
Swinburne,  speaks  of  the  "  dignity  of  divinity,  which  informs 
the  most  passionate  and  piteous  notes  of  the  unapproachable 
poetess  with  such  grandeur  as  would  seem  impossible  to  such 
passion."  And  J.  A.  Symonds  assures  us  that  "Nowhere, 
except,  perhaps,  in  some  Persian  or  Proven  gal  love-songs,  can 
be  found  more  ardent  expressions  of  overmastering  passion." 

I  have  read  this  poem  a  score  of  times,  in  Greek,  in  the  Lat- 
in version  of  Catullus,  and  in  English,  German,  and  French 
translations.  The  more  I  read  it  and  compare  with  it  the  eu- 
logies just  quoted,  the  more  I  marvel  at  the  power  of  cant 
and  conventionality  in  criticism  and  opinion,  and  at  the  amaz- 
ing current  ignorance  in  regard  to  the  psychology  of  love 
and  of  the  emotions  in  general.  I  have  made  a  long  and  mi- 
nute study  of  the  symptoms  of  love,  in  myself  and  in  others  ; 
I  have  found  that  the  torments  of  doubt  and  the  loss  of  sleep 
may  make  a  lover  "  paler  than  grass  "  ;  that  his  heart  is  apt 
to  "  nutter  in  his  bosom,"  and  his  tongue  to  be  embarrassed 
in  presence  of  the  beloved  ;  but  when  Sappho  speaks  of  a  lover 
bathed  in  sweat,  of  becoming  blind,  deaf,  and  dumb,  trem- 
bling all  over,  and  little  better  than  one  dead,  she  indulges  in 
exaggeration  which  is  neither  true  to  life  nor  poetic. 

An  amusing  experiment  may  be  made  with  reference  to  this 
famous  poem.  Suppose  you  say  to  a  friend  :  "  A  woman 
was  walking  in  the  woods  when  she  saw  something  that  made 


LOVE   IN   SAPPHO'S    POEMS  753 

her  turn  pale  as  a  sheet ;  her  heart  fluttered,  her  ears  rang, 
her  tongue  was  paralyzed,  a  cold  sweat  covered  her,  she 
trembled  all  over  and  looked  as  if  she  would  faint  and  die  : 
what  did  she  see  ?  "  The  chances  are  ten  to  one  that  your 
friend  will  answer  "a  bear!"  In  truth,  Sappho's  famous 
" symptoms  of  love  "are  laughably  like  the  symptoms  of  fear 
which  we  find  described  in  the  books  of  Bain,  Darwin,  Mosso, 
and  others — "  a  cold  sweat,"  "  deadly  pallor,"  "  voice  becom- 
ing husky  or  failing  altogether,"  "  heart  beating  violently," 
"dizziness  which  will  blind  him,"  "trembling  of  all  the 
muscles  of  the  body,"  "a  fainting  fit."  Nor  is  fear  the 
only  emotion  that  can  produce  these  symptoms.  Almost 
any  strong  passion,  anger,  extreme  agony  or  joy,  may  cause 
them  ;  so  that  what  Sappho  described  was  not  love  in  par- 
ticular, but  the  physiologic  effects  of  violent  emotions  in  gen- 
eral. I  am  glad  that  the  Greek  physician  who  copied  her 
poem  into  his  book  of  diagnoses  is  not  my  family  doctor. 

Sappho's  love-poems  are  not  psychologic  but  purely  physi- 
ologic. Of  the  imaginative,  sentimental,  esthetic,  moral,  al- 
truistic, sympathetic,  affectional  symptoms  of  what  we  know 
as  romantic  love  they  do  not  give  us  the  faintest  hint.  Hegel 
remarked  truly  that  "  in  the  odes  of  Sappho  the  language  of 
love  rises  indeed  to  the  point  of  lyrical  inspiration,  yet  what 
she  reveals  is  rather  the  slow  consuming  flame  of  the  blood 
than  the  inwardness  of  the  subjective  heart  and  soul."  Nor 
was  Byron  deceived  :  "I  don't  think  Sappho's  ode  a  good 
example."  The  historian  Bender  had  an  inkling  of  the  truth 
when  he  wrote  (183)  :  "  To  us  who  are  accustomed  to  spirit- 
ualized love-lyrics  after  the  style  of  Geibel's  this  erotic  song 
of  Sappho  may  seem  too  glowing,  too  violent ;  but  we  must 
not  forget  that  love  was  conceived  by  the  Greeks  altogether 
in  a  less  spiritual  manner  than  we  demand  that  it  should  be/' 

That  is  it  precisely.  These  Greek  love-poems  do  not  depict 
romantic  love  but  sensual  passion.  Nor  is  this  the  worst  of  it. 
Sappho's  absurdly  overrated  love-poems  are  not  even  good 
descriptions  of  normal  sensual  passion.  I  have  jnst  said  that 
they  are  purely  physiologic  ;  but  that  is  too  much  praise  for 
them.  The  word  physiologic  implies  something  healthy  and 


754  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

normal,  but  Sappho's  poems  are  not  healthy  and  normal  ; 
they  are  abnormal,  they  are  pathologic.  Had  they  been 
written  by  a  man,  this  would  not  be  the  case  ;  but  Sappho 
was  a  woman,  and  her  famous  ode  is  addressed  to  a  woman. 
A  woman,  too,  is  referred  to  in  her  famous  hymn  to  Venus 
in  these  lines,  as  translated  by  Wharton  :  "  What  beauty  now 
wouldst  thou  draw  to  love  thee  ?  Who  wrongs  thee,  Sappho  ? 
For  even  if  she  flies,  she  shall  soon  follow,  and  if  she  rejects 
gifts  shall  yet  give,  and  if  she  loves  not  shall  soon  love,  how- 
ever loth."  In  the  five  fragments  above  quoted  there  are 
also  two  at  least  which  refer  to  girls.  Now  I  have  not  the 
slightest  desire  to  discuss  the  moral  character  of  Sappho  or 
the  vices  of  her  Lesbian  countrywomen.  She  had  a  bad  reputa- 
tion among  the  Eomans  as  well  as  the  Greeks,  and  it  is  a  fact 
that  in  the  year  1073  her  poems  were  burnt  at  Rome  and  Con- 
stantinople, "  as  being,"  in  the  words  of  Professor  Gilbert  Mur- 
ray, "too  much  for  the  shaky  morals  of  the  time."  Another 
recent  writer,  Professor  Peck  of  Columbia  University,  says 
that  "  it  is  difficult  to  read  the  fragments  which  remain  of  her 
verse  without  being  forced  to  come  to  the  conclusion  that  a 
woman  who  could  write  such  poetry  could  not  be  the  pure 
woman  that  her  modern  apologists  would  have  her."  The 
following  lament  alone  would  prove  this  : 

v  a 


Se 


MASCULINE   MINDS   IK   FEMALE   BODIES 

Several  books  and  many  articles  have  been  written  on  this 
topic, l  but  the  writers  seem  to  have  overlooked  the  fact  that 
in  the  light  of  the  researches  of  Krafft-Ebing  and  Moll  it  is 
possible  to  vindicate  the  character  of  Sappho  without  ignor- 
ing the  fact  that  her  passionate  erotic  poems  are  addressed  to 
women.  These  alienists  have  shown  that  the  abnormal  state 

1F.  B.  Jevons  refers  to  some  of  these  as  "mephitic  exhalations  from  the  bogs 
of  perverted  imaginings  ! "  Welcker's  defence  of  Sappho  is  a  masterpiece  of 
naivete  written  in  ignorance  of  mental  pathology. 


MASCULINE   MINDS   IN  FEMALE   BODIES        755 

of  a  masculine  mind  inhabiting  a  female  body,  or  vice  versa, 
is  surprisingly  common  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  They  look 
on  it,  with  the  best  of  reasons,  as  a  diseased  condition,  which 
does  not  necessarily,  in  persons  of  high  principles,  lead  to 
vicious  and  unnatural  practices.  In  every  country  there  are 
thousands  of  girls  who,  from  childhood,  would  rather  climb 
trees  and  fences  and  play  soldiers  with  the  boys  than  fondle 
dolls  or  play  with  the  other  girls.  When  they  get  older  they 
prefer  tobacco  to  candy  ;  they  love  to  masquerade  in  men's 
clothes,  and  when  they  hear  of  a  girl's  love-aifair  they  can- 
not understand  what  pleasure  there  can  be  in  dancing  with  a 
man  or  kissing  him,  while  they  themselves  may  long  to  kiss 
a  girl,  nay,  in  numerous  cases,  to  marry  her.1  Many  such 
marriages  are  made  between  women  whose  brains  and  bodies 
are  of  different  sexes,  and  their  love-affairs  are  often  charac- 
terized by  violent  jealousy  and  other  symptoms  of  intersexual 
passion.  Not  a  few  prominent  persons  have  been  innocent 
victims  of  this  distressing  disease  ;  it  is  well-known  what 
strange  masculine  proclivities  several  eminent  female  novelists 
and  artists  have  shown  ;  and  whenever  a  woman  shows  great 
creative  power  or  polemic  aggressiveness  the  chances  are  that 
her  brain  is  of  the  masculine  type.  It  is  therefore  quite  pos- 
sible that  Sappho  may  have  been  personally  a  pure  woman, 
her  mental  masculinity  ("  mascula  Sappho"  Horace  calls  her) 
being  her  misfortune,  not  her  fault.  But  even  if  we  give  her 
the  benefit  of  the  doubt  and  take  for  granted  that  she  had 
enough  character  to  resist  the  abnormal  impulses  and  passions 
which  she  describes  in  her  poems,  and  which  the  Greeks  easily 
pardoned  and  even  praised,  we  cannot  and  must  not  overlook 
the  fact  that  these  poems  are  the  result  of  a  diseased  brain- 
centre,  and  that  what  they  describe  is  not  Jove,  but  a  phase 
of  erotic  pathology.  Normal  sexual  appetite  is  as  natural 
a  passion  as  the  hunger  for  food  ;  it  is  simply  a  hunger  to 
perpetuate  the  species,  and  without  it  the  world  would  soon 

1  The  most  elaborate  discussion  of  this  subject  is  to  be  found  in  Moll's  Unter- 
stichungen,  311  440,  where  also  copious  bibliographic  references  are  given.  The 
most  striking  impression  left  by  the  reading  of  this  book  is  that  the  differentia- 
tion of  the  sexes  is  by  no  means  as  complete  yet  as  it  ought  to  be.  All  the  more 
need  is  there  of  romantic  love,  whose  function  it  is  to  assist  and  accelerate  this 
differentiation. 


756  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

come  to  an  end  ;  but  Sapphic  passion  is  a  disease  which 
luckily  cannot  become  epidemic  because  it  cannot  perpetuate 
itself,  but  must  always  remain  a  freak,1 


ANACREON   AND   OTHERS 

There  is  considerable  uncertainty  regarding  the  dates  of 
the  earliest  Greek  poets.  By  dint  of  ingenious  conjectures 
and  combinations  philologists  have  reached  the  conclusion 
that  the  Homeric  poems,  with  their  interpolations,  originated 
between  the  dates  850  and  720  B.C. — say  2700  years  ago. 
Hesiod  probably  nourished  near  the  end  of  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, to  which  Archilochus  and  Alcman  belong,  while  in  the 
sixth  and  fifth  centuries  a  number  of  names  appear — little 
more  than  names,  it  is  true,  since  of  most  of  them  fragments 
only  have  come  down  to  us — Alcaeus,  Mimnermus,  Theognis, 
Sappho,  Stesichorus,  Anacreon,  Ibycus,  Bacchylides,  Pindar, 
and  others.  Best  known  of  all  these,  as  a  poet  of  love,  is 
Anacreon,  though  in  his  case  no  one  has  been  so  foolish  as  to 
claim  that  the  love  described  in  his  poems  (or  those  of  his 
imitators)  is  ever  supersensual.  Professor  Anthon  has  aptly 
characterized  him  as  ' '  an  amusing  voluptuary  and  an  elegant 
profligate/'  and  Hegel  pointed  out  the  superficiality  of  Anac- 
reontic love,  in  which  there  is  no  conception  of  the  tremen- 
dous importance  to  a  lover  of  having  this  or  that  particular 
girl  and  no  other,  or  what  I  have  called  individual  preference. 
Benecke  puts  this  graphically  when  he  remarks  (25)  regard- 
ing Mimnermus  :  " <  What  is  life  without  love  ?'  he  says  ; 
he  does  not  say,  '  What  is  life  without  your  love  ? ' :  Even 
in  Sappho,  I  may  add  here,  in  spite  of  the  seeming  violence 
of  her  passion,  this  quality  of  individual  preference  is  really 
lacking  or  weak,  for  she  is  constantly  transferring  her  atten- 

1  As  long  ago  as  1836-38  a  Swiss  author,  Heinrich  Hossli,  wrote  a  remarkable 
book  with  the  title  The  Unreliability  of  External  Signs  as  Indications  of  Sex 
in  Body  and  Mind.  I  may  add  here  that  if  it  were  known  how  many  of  the 
41  shrieking  sisterhood  "  who  are  clamoring  for  masculine  "rights  "  for  women, 
are  among  the  unfortunates  who  were  born  with  male  brains  in  female  bodies, 
the  movement  would  collapse  as  if  struck  by  a  ton  of  dynamite.  These  amazons 
often  wonder  why  the  great  mass  of  women  are  so  hard  to  stir  up  in  this  matter. 
The  reason  is  that  the  great  mass  of  women — heaven  be  thanked  ! — have  femi- 
nine minds  as  well  as  feminine  bodies. 


WOMAN   AND   LOVE   IN   ^SCHYLUS  757 

tion  from  one  girl  to  anather.  And  as  Sappho's  poems  are 
addressed  to  girls,  so  are  Anacreon's  and  those  of  the  other 
poets  named,  to  hoys,  in  most  cases.  The  following,  pre- 
served by  Athenaeus  (XIIL,  564D),  is  a  good  specimen  : 


ircu 

t  (re,  <rt>  5'  ou  Koeis  i 
OVK  et'Sws  STI  TTJS  e/j.i)s 


Such  a  poem,  even  if  addressed  properly,  would  indicate 
nothing  more  than  simple  admiration  and  a  longing  which 
is  specified  in  the  following  : 


,  <£ 

It  would  hardly  be  worth  while,  even  if  the  limitations  of 
space  permitted,  to  subject  the  fragments  of  the  other  poets 
of  this  period  to  analysis.  The  reader  has  the  key  in  his 
hands  now  —  the  altruistic  and  supersensual  ingredients  of 
love  pointed  out  in  this  volume  ;  and  if  he  can  find  those  in- 
gredients in  any  of  these  poems,  he  will  be  luckier  than  I 
have  been.  We  may  therefore  pass  on  to  the  great  tragic 
poets  of  the  sixth  and  fifth  centuries  B.  C. 

WOMAN   AND    LOVE   IN   JESCHYLUS 

In  the  Frogs  of  Aristophanes,  ^Eschylus  is  made  to  declare 
that  he  had  never  introduced  a  woman  in  love  into  any  of  his 

plays  —  OVK    oTS'    ovSets   T]VTIV    epowrav   TTOTTT    ciroLrjcra   yvvaLKa.       He 

certainly  has  not  done  so  in  any  one  of  the  seven  plays  which 
have  survived  of  the  ninety  that  he  wrote,  according  to  Suidas  ; 
and  Aristophanes  would  not  have  put  that  expression  in  his 
mouth  had  it  not  been  true  of  the  others,  too.  To  us  it  seems 
extraordinary  that  an  author  should  boast  of  having  kept  out 
of  his  writings  the  element  which  constitutes  the  greatest 
fascination  of  modern  literature  ;  but  after  reading  his  seven 
surviving  tragedies  we  do  not  wonder  that  yEschylus  should 
not  have  introduced  a  woman  in  love,  or  a  man  either,  in 
plays  wherewith  he  competed  for  the  state  prize  on  the 
solemn  occasions  of  the  great  festivals  at  Athens  ;  for  love  of 


758          GREEK  LOVE-STORIES  AND   POEMS 

an  exalted  kind,  worthy  of  such  an  occasion,  could  not  have 
existed  in  a  community  where  such  ideas  prevailed  about 
women  as  ^Eschylus  unfolds  in  the  few  places  where  he  con- 
descends to  notice  such  inferior  beings.  The  only  kind  of 
sexual  love  of  which  he  shows  any  knowledge  is  that  referred 
to  in  the  remarks  of  Prometheus  and  lo  regarding  the  designs 
of  Zeus  on  the  latter. 

An  apparent  exception  seems  at  first  sight  to  exist  in  the 
cordial  reception  Clytaemnestra  accords  to  her  husband,  King 
Agamemnon,  when  he  returns  from  the  Trojan  war.  She 
calls  the  day  of  his  return  the  most  joyous  of  her  life,  asserts 
her  complete  fidelity  to  him  during  his  long  absence,  de- 
clares she  is  not  ashamed  to  tell  her  fond  feelings  for  her 
spouse  in  public,  and  adds  that  she  has  wept  for  him  till  the 
gushing  fountains  of  her  eyes  have  been  exhausted.  Indeed, 
she  goes  so  far  in  her  homage  that  Agamemnon  protests  and 
exclaims,  "  Pamper  me  not  after  the  fashion  of  women,  nor 
as  though  I  were  a  barbaric  monarch.  .  .  I  bid  thee 
reverence  me  as  a  man,  not  a  god."  But  ere  long  we  discover 
(as  in  the  case  of  Achilles),  that  all  this  fine  talk  of  Clytasm- 
nestra  is  mere  verbiage,  and  worse — deadly  hypocrisy.  In 
reality  she  has  been  living  with  a  paramour,  and  the  genuine- 
ness and  intensity  of  her  "fond  feelings"  for  her  husband 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  hardly  has  he  returned 
when  she  makes  a  murderous  assault  on  him  by  throwing  an 
artfully  woven  circular  garment  over  him,  while  he  is  taking 
a  bath,  and/ smiting  him  till  he  falls  dead.  "And  I  glory  in 
the  deed  "  she  afterwards  declares,  adding  that  it  "  has  long 
since  been  meditated." 

Agamemnon,  for  his  part,  not  only  brought  back  with  him 
from  Troy  a  new  concubine,  Cassandra,  and  installed  her  in 
his  home  with  the  usual  Greek  indifference  to  the  feelings  of 
his  legitimate  wife,  but  he  really  was  no  better  than  his  mur- 
derous wife,  since  he  had  been  willing  to  kill  her  daughter 
and  his  own,  Iphigenia,  to  please  his  brother,  curb  a  storm, 
and  expedite  the  Trojan  war.  In  the  words  of  the  Chorus, 

"  Thus  he  dared  to  become  the  sacrificer  of  his  daughter  to 
promote  a  war  undertaken  for  the  avenging  of  a  woman,  and 


WOMAN   AND   LOVE   IN   AESCHYLUS  759 

as  a  first  offering  for  the  fleet :  and  the  chieftains,  eager  for 
the  fight,  set  at  naught  her  supplications  and  her  cries  to  her 
father,  and  her  maiden  age.  But  after  prayer  her  father  bade 
the  ministering  priests  with  all  zeal,  to  lift,  like  a  kid,  high 
above  the  altar,  her  who  lay  prostrate  wrapped  in  her  robes, 
and  to  put  a  check  upon  her  beauteous  mouth,  a  voice  of 
curses  upon  the  house,  by  force  of  muzzles  and  strength 
which  allowed  no  vent  to  her  cry." 

The  barbarous  sacrifice  of  an  innocent  maiden  is  of  course 
a  myth,  but  it  is  a  myth  which  doubtless  had  many  counter- 
parts in  Greek  life.  ^schylus  did  not  live  so  very  long 
after  Homer,  and  in  his  age  it  was  still  a  favorite  pastime  of 
the  Greeks  to  ravage  cities,  a  process  of  which  ^Eschylus 
gives  us  a  vivid  picture  in  a  few  lines,  in  his  Seven  against 
Tliebes  : 

*'  And  for  its  women  to  be  dragged  away  captives,  alas  ! 
alas  !  both  the  young  and  the  aged,  like  horses  by  their  hair, 
while  their  vestments  are  rent  about  their  persons.  And  the 
emptied  city  cries  aloud,  while  its  booty  is  wasted  amid  con- 
fused clamors.  .  .  .  And  the  cries  of  children  at  the 
breast  all  bloody  resound,  and  there  is  rapine,  sister  of  pell- 
mell  confusion  .  .  And  young  female  slaves  have  new 
sorrows  ...  so  that  they  hope  for  life's  gloomy  close  to 
come,  a  guardian  against  these  all-mournful  sorrows." 

For  women  of  rank  alone  is  there  any  consideration — so 
long  as  they  are  not  among  the  captives  ;  yet  even  queens  are 
not  honored  as  women,  but  only  as  queens,  that  is,  as  the 
mothers  or  wives  of  kings.  In  The  Persians  the  Chorus 
salutes  Atossa  in  terms  every  one  of  which  emphasizes  this 
point :  "  0  queen,  supreme  of  Persia's  deep-waisted  matrons, 
aged  mother  of  Xerxes,  hail  to  thee  !  spouse  to  Darius,  con- 
sort of  the  Persians,  god  and  mother  of  a  god  thou  art,"  while 
Clytaemnestra  is  saluted  by  the  chorus  in  Agamemnon  in 
these  words  :  "  I  have  came  revering  thy  majesty,  Clytaem- 
nestra ;  for  it  is  right  to  honor  the  consort  of  a  chieftain 
hero,  when  the  monarch's  throne  has  been  left  empty." 

We  read  in  these  plays  of  such  unsympathetic  things  as  a 
"  man-detesting  host  of  Amazons ; "  of  fifty  virgins  fleeing 
from  incestuous  wedlock  and  all  but  one  of  them  cutting 


760  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

their  husbands7  throats  at  night  with  a  sword  ;  of  the  folly  of 
marrying  out  of  one's  own  rank.  In  all  JEschylus  there  is 
on  the  other  hand  only  one  noticeable  reference  to  a  genuine 
womanly  quality — the  injunction  of  Danaus  to  his  daughters 
to  honor  modesty  more  than  life  while  they  are  travelling 
among  covetous  men  ;  an  admonition  much  needed,  since,,  as 
Danaus  adds  — characterizing  the  coarseness  and  lack  of  chiv- 
alry of  the  men — violence  is  sure  to  threaten  them  every- 
where, "and  on  the  fair-formed  beauty  of  virgins  everyone 
that  passes  by  sends  forth  a  melting  dart  from  his  eyes,  over- 
come by  desire."  Masculine  coarseness  and  lack  of  chivalry 
are  also  revealed  in  such  abuse  of  woman  as  uEschylus — in 
the  favorite  Greek  manner,  puts  in  the  mouth  of  Eteocles  : 

"  0  ye  abominations  of  the  wise.  Neither  in  woes  nor  in 
welcome  prosperity  may  I  be  associated  with  woman-kind  ; 
for  when  woman  prevails,  her  audacity  is  more  than  one  can 
live  with  ;  and  when  affrighted  she  is  still  a  greater  mischief 
to  her  home  and  city." 


WOMAN   AND   LOVE   IN   SOPHOCLES 

Unlike  his  predecessor,  Sophocles  did  not  hesitate,  it  seems, 
to  bring  "  a  woman  in  love  "  on  the  stage.  Not,  it  is  true,  in 
any  one  of  the  seven  plays  which  alone  remain  of  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty-three  he  is  said  to  have  written.  But 
there  are  in  existence  some  fragments  of  his  PUcsdra,  which 
Rohde  (31)  and  others  are  inclined  to  look  on  as  the  "  first 
tragedy  of  love."  It  has,  however,  nothing  to  do  with  what 
we  know  as  either  romantic  or  conjugal  love,  but  is  simply 
the  story  of  the  adulterous  and  incestuous  infatuation  of 
Phaedra  for  her  stepson  Hippolytus.  It  is  at  the  same  time 
one  of  the  many  stories  illustrating  the  whimsical,  hypocriti- 
cal, and  unchivalrous  attitude  of  the  early  Greeks  of  always 
making  woman  the  sinful  aggressor  and  representing  man  as 
being  coyly  reserved  (see  Rohde,  34-35).  The  infatuation  of 
Phaedra  is  correctly  described  (/>.,  611,  607  Dind.)  as  a 
.SerjAaTos  i'oo-os — a  maddening  disease  inflicted  by  an  angry 
goddess. 


WOMAN   AND   LOVE   IN   SOPHOCLES  761 

Among  the  seven  extant  tragedies  of  Sophocles  there  are 
three  which  throw  some  light  on  the  contemporary  attitude 
toward  women  and  the  different  kinds  of  domestic  attach- 
ment— the  Ajax,  the  Trachinice  and  Antigone.  When  Ajax, 
having  disgraced  himself  by  slaughtering  a  flock  of  sheep 
and  cattle  in  the  mad  delusion  that  they  were  his  enemies, 
wishes  he  might  die,  Tecmessa,  his  concubine,  declares, 
'*  Then  pray  for  my  death,  too,  for  why  should  I  live  if  you 
are  dead  ?"  She  has,  however,  plenty  of  egotistic  reasons 
for  dreading  his  death,  for  she  knows  that  her  fate  will  be 
slavery.  Moreover,  instead  of  being  edified  by  her  expression 
of  attachment,  we  are  repelled  when  we  bear  in  mind  that 
Ajax  slew  her  father  when  he  made  her  his  concubine.  The 
Greeks  were  too  indelicate  in  their  ideas  about  concubines  to 
be  disturbed  by  such  a  reflection.  Nor  were  they  affected  dis- 
agreeably by  the  utter  indifference  toward  his  concubine 
which  Ajax  displays.  He  tells  her  to  attend  to  her  own  affairs 
and  remember  that  silence  is  a  woman's  greatest  charm,  and 
before  committing  suicide  he  utters  a  monologue  in  which  he 
s:iyrf  farewell  to  his  parents  and  to  his  country,  but  has  no 
last  message  for  Tecmessa.  She  was  only  a  woman,  forsooth. 

Only  a  woman,  too,  was  Deianira,  the  heroine  of  the  TrarJii- 
nias,  and  though  of  exalted  rank  she  fully  realized  this  fact. 
When  Hercules  first  took  her  to  Tiryns,  he  was  still  suffi- 
ciently interested  in  her  to  shoot  a  hydra-poisoned  arrow  into 
the  centaur  Nessus,  who  attempted  to  assault  her  while  car- 
rying her  across  the  river  Evenus.  But  after  she  had  borne 
him  several  children  he  neglected  her,  going  off  on  adventures 
to  capture  other  women.  She  weeps  because  of  his  absence, 
complaining  that  for  fifteen  months  she  has  had  no  message 
from  him.  At  last  information  is  brought  to  her  that  Her- 
cules, inflamed  with  violent  love  for  the  Princess  lole,  had 
demanded  her  for  a  secret  union,  and  when  the  king  refused, 
had  ravaged  his  city  and  carried  off  lole,  to  be  unto  him  more 
than  a  slave,  as  the  messenger  gives  her  to  understand  dis- 
tinctly. On  receiving  this  message,  Deianira  is  at  first  greatly 
agitated,  but  soon  remembers  what  the  duty  of  a  Greek  wife 
is.  "  I  am  well  aware, "she  says  in  substance,  "  that  we  can- 


762  GREEK    LOVE-STORIES   AND    POEMS 

not  expect  a  man  to  be  always  content  with  one  woman.  To 
antagonize  the  god  of  love,  or  to  blame  my  husband  for  suc- 
cumbing to  him,  would  be  foolish.  After  all,  what  does  it 
amount  to  ?  Has  not  Hercules  done  this  sort  of  thing  many 
times  before  ?  Have  I  ever  been  angry  with  him  for  so  often 
succumbing  to  this  malady  ?  His  concubines,  too,  have  never 
received  an  unkind  word  from  me,  nor  shall  lole  ;  for  I  freely 
confess,  resentment  does  not  become  a  woman.  Yet  I  am  dis- 
tressed, for  I  am  old  and  lole  is  young,  and  she  will  hereafter 
be  his  actual  wife  in  place  of  me."  At  this  thought  jealousy 
sharpens  her  wit  and  she  remembers  that  the  dying  centaur 
had  advised  her  to  save  some  of  his  blood  and,  if  ever  occasion 
should  come  for  her  to  wish  to  bring  back  her  husband's  love, 
to  anoint  his  garment  with  it.  She  does  so,  and  sends  it  to 
him,  without  knowing  that  its  effect  will  be  to  slowly  burn 
the  flesh  off  his  body.  Hearing  of  the  deadly  effect  of  her 
gift,  she  commits  suicide,  while  Hercules  spends  the  few  re- 
maining hours  of  his  life  cursing  her  who  murdered  him, 
"  the  best  of  all  men,"  and  wishing  she  were  suffering  in  his 
place  or  that  he  might  mutilate  her  body.  Nor  was  his  latest 
and  "  violent  love "  for  lole  more  than  a  passing  appetite 
quickly  appeased  ;  for  at  the  end  he  asks  his  son  to  marry  her  ! 

This  drama  admirably  illustrates  the  selfish  view  of  the 
marital  relation  entertained  by  Greek  men.  Its  moral  may 
be  summed  up  in  this  advice  to  a  wife  :  "  If  your  husband 
falls  in  love  with  a  younger  woman  and  brings  her  home,  let 
him,  for  he  is  a  victim  of  Cupid  and  cannot  help  it.  Display 
no  jealousy,  and  do  not  even  try  to  win  back  his  love,  for  that 
might  annoy  him  or  cause  mischief."  In  other  words,  Tlie 
Trachinioe  is  an  object-lesson  to  Greek  wives,  telling  us  what 
the  men  thought  they  ought  to  be.  Probably  some  of  the 
wives  tried  to  live  up  to  that  ideal  ;  but  that  could  hardly  be 
accepted  as  genuine,  spontaneous  devotion  deserving  the  name 
of  affection. 

Most  famous  among  all  the  tragedies  of  the  Greeks,  and  de- 
servedly so,  is  the  Antigone.  Its  plot  can  be  told  in  such  a 
way  as  to  make  it  seem  a  romantic  love-story,  if  not  a  story 
of  romantic  love.  Creon,  King  of  Thebes,  has  ordered,  un- 


WOMAN   AND   LOVE   IN   SOPHOCLES          763 

der  penalty  of  death,  that  no  one  shall  bestow  the  rites  of 
burial  on  Prince  Poiynices,  who  has  fallen  after  bearing  arms 
against  his  own  country.  Antigone,  sister  of  Poiynices,  re- 
solves to  disobey  this  cruel  order,  and  having  failed  to  per- 
suade her  sister,  Ismene,  to  aid  her,  carries  out  her  plan 
alone.  Boldly  visiting  the  place. where  the  body  is  exposed 
to  the  dogs  and  vultures,  she  sprinkles  dust  on  it  and  pours 
out  libations,  repeating  the  process  the  next  day  on  finding 
that  the  guards  had  meanwhile  undone  her  work.  This  time 
she  is  apprehended  in  the  act  and  brought  before  the  king, 
who  condemns  her  to  be  immured  alive  in  a  tomb,  though 
she  is  betrothed  to  his  son  Haemon.  "  Would  you  murder 
the  bride  of  your  own  son  ? "  asks  Ismene  ;  but  the  king  re- 
plies that  there  are  many  other  women  in  the  world.  Hae- 
moii  now  appears  and  tries  to  move  his  father  to  mercy,  but 
in  vain,  though  he  threatens  to  slay  himself  if  his  bride  is 
killed.  Antigone  is  immured,  but  at  last,  moved  by  the  ad- 
vice of  the  Chorus  and  the  dire  predictions  of  the  seer  Tires- 
ias,  Creon  changes  his  mind  and  hastens  with  men  and  tools 
to  liberate  the  virgin.  When  he  arrives  at  the  tomb  he  sees 
his  son  in  it,  clinging  to  the  corpse  of  Antigone,  who  had 
hanged  herself.  Horrified,  the  king  begs  his  son  to  come 
out  of  the  tomb,  but  Haemon  seizes  his  sword  and  rushes 
forward  to  slay  his  father.  The  king  escapes  the  danger  by 
flight,  whereupon  Haemon  thrusts  the  sword  into  his  own 
body,  and  expires,  clasping  the  corpse  of  his  bride. 

If  we  thus  make  Haemon  practically  the  central  figure  of 
the  tragedy,  it  resembles  a  romantic  love-story  ;  but  in  reality 
Haemon  is  little  more  than  an  episode.  He  has  a  quarrel  with 
his  father  (who  goes  so  far  as  to  threaten  to  kill  his  bride  in 
his  presence),  rushes  off  in  a  rage,  and  the  tomb  scene  is  not 
enacted,  but  merely  related  by  a  messenger,  in  forty  lines  out 
of  a  total  of  thirteen  hundred  and  fifty.  Much  less  still  have 
we  here  a  story  of  romantic  love.  Not  one  of  the  fourteen 
ingredients  of  love  can  be  found  in  it  except  self-sacrifice, 
and  that  not  of  the  right  kind.  I  need  not  explain  once 
more  that  suicide  from  grief  over  a  lost  bride  does  not  benefit 
that  bride  ;  that  it  is  not  altruistic,  but  selfish,  unmanly,  and 


764          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

cowardly,  and  is  therefore  no  test  whatever  of  love.  More- 
over, if  we  examine  the  dialogue  in  detail  we  see  that  the 
motive  of  Haemon's  suicide  is  not  even  grief  over  his  lost 
bride,  but  rage  at  his  father.  When  on  first  confronting 
Oreon,  he  is  thus  accosted:  "Have  you  heard  the  sentence 
pronounced  on  your  bride  ?  "  He  answers  meekly  :  "  I  have, 
my  father,  and  I  yield  to  your  superior  wisdom,  which  no 
marriage  can  equal  in  excellence  ; "  and  it  is  only  gradually 
that  his  ire  is  aroused  by  his  fa-ther's  abusive  attitude  ;  while 
at  the  end  his  first  intention  was  to  slay  his  father,  not  him- 
self. Had  Sophocles  understood  love  as  we  understand  it, 
he  would  have  represented  Haemon  as  drawing  his  sword  at 
once  and  moving  heaven  and  earth  to  prevent  his  bride  from 
being  buried  alive. 

But  it  is  in  examining  the  attitude  of  Antigone  that  we 
realize  most  vividly  how  short  this  drama  falls  of  being  a 
love-story.  She  never  even  mentions  Haemon,  has.no  thought 
of  him,  but  is  entirely  absorbed  in  the  idea  of  benefiting  the 
spirit  of  her  dead  brother  by  performing  the  forbidden  funeral 
rites.  As  if  to  remove  all  doubt  on  that  point,  she  further- 
more tells  us  explicitly  (lines  904—912)  that  she  would  have' 
never  done  such  a  deed,  in  defiance  of  the  law,  to  save  a  hus- 
band or  a  child,  but  only  for  a  brother  ;  and  why  ?  because 
she  might  easily  find  another  husband,  and  have  new  children 
by  him,  but  another  brother  she  could  never  have,  as  her 
parents  were  dead.1 

1  Probably  no  passage  in  any  drama  has  ever  been  more  widely  discussed  than 
the  nine  lines  I  have  just  summarized.  As  long  ago  as  the  sixteenth  century 
the  astronomer  Petrus  Codicillus  pronounced  them  spurious.  Goethe  once  re- 
marked to  Eckermann  (III.,  March  28,  1827)  that  he  considered  them  a  blemish 
in  the  tragedy  and  would  give  a  good  deal  if  some  philologist  would  prove  that 
Sophocles  had  not  written  them.  A  number  of  eminent  philologists — Jacob, 
Lehrs,  Hauck,  Dindorf,  Wecklein,  Jebb,  Christ,  and  others — have  actually 
bracketed  them  as  not  genuine;  but  if  they  are  interpolations,  they  must  have 
been  added  within  a  century  after  the  play  was  written,  for  Aristotle  refers  to 
them  (Tthet.  ///.,  16,  9)  in  these  words  ;  "  And  should  any  circumstance  be  in- 
credible, you  must  subjoin  the  reason  ;  as  Sophocles  does.  He  furnishes  an  ex- 
ample in  the  Antigone,  that  she  mourned  more  for  her  brother  than  for  a  hub- 
band  and  children  ;  for  these,  if  lost,  might  again  be  hers. 

"  '  But  father  now  and  mother  both  being  lost, 
A  brother's  name  can  ne'er  be  hailed  again.'  " 

It  is  noticeable  that  Aristotle  should  pronounce  Antigone's  preference  strange 
or  incredible  from  a  Greek  point  of  view ;  that  point  of  view  being,  as  we  have 


WOMAN    AND    LOVE   IN  EURIPIDES  765 


WOMAtf    AN^D    LOVE    IN    EURIPIDES 

Of  Euripides  it  cannot  be  said,  as  of  his  two  great  prede- 
cessors, that  woman  plays  an  insignificant  role  in  his  dramas. 
Most  of  the  nineteen  plays  which  have  come  down  to  us  of 
the  ninety-two  he  wrote  are  named  after  women  ;  and  Bul- 
wer-Lytton  was  quite  right  when  he  declared  that  "  he  is  the 
first  of  the  Hellenic  poets  who  interests  us  intellectually  in 
the  antagonism  and  affinity  between  the  sexes/''  Bat  I  can- 
not agree  with  him  when  he  says  that  with  Euripides  com- 
mences "  the  distinction  between  love  as  a  passion  and  love 
as  a  sentiment."  There  is  true  sentiment  in  Euripides,  as 
there  is  in  Sophocles,  in  the  relations  between  parents  and 
children,  friends,  brothers  and  sisters  ;  but  in  the  attitude  of 
lovers,  or  of  husband  and  wife,  there  is  only  sensuality  or  at 
most  sentimentality  ;  and  this  sentimentality,  or  sham  senti- 
ment, does  not  begin  with  Euripides,  for  we  have  found  in- 
stances of  it  in  the  fond  words  of  Cly  taemnestra  regarding  the 
husband  she  intended  to  murder,  and  did  murder,  and  even 
in  the  Homeric  Achilles,  whose  fine  words  regarding  conju- 
gal love  contrast  so  ludicrously  with  his  unloving  actions. 
These,  however,  are  mere  episodes,  while  Euripides  has  written 
a  whole  play  which  from  beginning  to  end  is  an  exposition  of 
sentimentality. 

The  Fates  had  granted  that  when  the  Thessalian  King  Ad- 
metus  approached  the  ordained  end  of  his  life  it  should  be 

seen,  that  a  woman's  first  duties  are  toward  her  husband,  for  whom  she  should 
ever  sacrifice  herself.  It  has  been  plausibly  suggested  that  Sophocles  borrowed 
the  idea  of  those  nine  lines  from  his  friend  Herodotus,  who  (III.,  118)  relates 
the  story  of  Darius  permitting  the  wife  of  Intophernes  to  save  one  of  her  rela- 
tives from  death  and  who  chooses  her  brother,  for  reasons  like  those  ad- 
vanced by  Antigone.  It  has  been  shown  (Z<  itxchriftf.  d.  Oesterreieh  Gymit., 
1808  ;  see  also  Frankfurter  Zeitnnfj,  July  22,  24,  27,  1889  {  Hermes,  XXVIII.) 
that  this  idea  occurs  in  old  tales  and  poems  of  India,  Persia,  China,  as  well  as 
among  the  Slavs,  Scandinavians,  etc.  If  Sophocles  did  introduce  thin  notion 


into  his  tragedy  (and  there  is  no  reason  for  doubting  it  except  the  unwarranted 
assumption  that  he  was  too  great  a  genius  to  make  such  a  blunder),  he  did  it  in 
a  bungling  way.  for  inasmuch  as  Antigone's  brother  is  dead  she  cannot  benefit 
her  family  by  favoring  him  at  the  expense  of  her  betrothed  ;  and  moreover, 
hor  act  of  sacrificing  herself  in  order  to  secure  the  rest  of  a  dear  one's  soul  — 
which  alone  might  have  partly  excused  her  heartless  and  unromantic  ignoring 
and  desertion  of  her  lover  —  is  bereft  of  all  its  nobility  by  her  equally  heartless 
declaration  that  she  would  not  have  thus  given  her  life  for  a  hushnnd  or  a  child. 
These  Greek  poets  knew  so  little  of  true  femininity  that  they  could  not  draw  a 
female  character  without  spoiling  it. 


766          GREEK  LOVE-STORIES  AND   POEMS 

prolonged  if  another  person  voluntarily  consented  to  die  in 
his  place.  His  aged  parents  had  no  heart  to  "  plunge  into 
the  darkness  of  the  tomb  "  for  his  sake.  "  It  is  not  the  cus- 
tom in  Greece  for  fathers  to  die  for  children,"  his  father  in- 
forms him  ;  while  Admetus  indulges  in  coarse  abuse  :  "By 
heaven,  thou  art  the  very  pattern  of  cowards,  who  at  thy  age, 
on  the  borderland  of  life,  would'st  not,  nay,  could'st  not  find 
the  heart  to  die  for  thy  own  son  ;  but  ye,  my  parents,  left  to 
this  stranger,  whom  henceforth  I  shall  justly  hold  e'en  as 
mother  and  as  father  too,  and  none  but  her."  This  "stran- 
ger "  is  his  wife  Alcestis,  who  has  volunteered  to  die  for  him, 
exclaiming  :  "  Thee  I  set  before  myself,  and  instead  of  liv- 
ing have  ensured  thy  life,  and  so  I  die,  though  I  need  not 
have  died  for  thee,  but  might  have  taken  for  my  husband 
whom  I  would  of  the  Thessalians,  and  have  had  a  home  blest 
with  royal  power ;  reft  of  thee,  with  my  children  orphans,  I 
cared  not  to  live." 

The  world  has  naively  accepted  this  speech  and  the  sacri- 
fice of  Alcestis  as  belonging  to  the  region  of  sentiment ;  but 
in  reality  it  is  nothing  more  than  one  of  those  stories  shrewdly 
invented  by  selfish  men  to  teach  women  that  the  object  of 
their  existence  is  to  sacrifice  themselves  for  their  husbands. 
The  king's  father  tells  us  this  in  so  many  words  :  "  By  the 
generous  deed  she  dared,  hath  she  made  her  life  a  noble  ex- 
ample for  all  her  sex  ;  "  adding  that  "  such  marriages  I  declare 
are  gain  to  man,  else  to  wed  is  not  worth  while."  If  these 
stories,  like  those  manufactured  by  the  Hindoos,  were  an  in- 
dication of  existing  conjugal  sentiment,  would  it  be  possible 
that  the  self-sacrifice  was  invariably  on  the  woman's  side  ? 
Admetus  would  have  never  dreamt  of  sacrificing  Ms  life  for 
his  wife.  He  is  not  even  ashamed  to  have  her  die  for  him. 
It  is  true  that  he  has  one  moment  when  he  fancies  his  foe  de- 
riding him  thus  :  "  Behold  him  living  in  his  shame,  a  wretch 
who  quailed  at  death  himself,  but  of  his  coward  heart  gave 
up  his  wedded  wife  instead,  and  escaped  from  Hades ;  doth 
he  deem  himself  a  man  after  that  ?  "  It  is  true  also  that  his 
father  taunts  him  contemptuously,  "  Dost  thou  then  speak 
of  cowardice  in  me,  thou  craven  heart  !  .  .  .  A  clever 


WOMAN   AND   LOVE   IN   EURIPIDES  767 

scheme  hast  thou  devised  to  stave  off  death  forever,  if  thou 
canst  persuade  each  new  wife  to  die  instead  of  thee."  Yet 
Admetus  is  constantly  assuring  everyone  of  his  undying  at- 
tachment to  his  wife.  He  holds  her  in  his  arms,  imploring 
her  not  to  leave  him.  "If  thou  die,"  he  exclaims,  "I  can 
no  longer  live  ;  my  life,  my  death,  are  in  thy  hands  ;  thy  love 
is  what  I  worship.  .  .  .  Not  a  year  only,  but  all  my  life 
will  I  mourn  for  thee.  ...  In  my  bed  thy  figure  shall 
be  laid  full  length,  by  cunning  artists  fashioned  ;  thereon  will 
I  throw  myself  and,  folding  my  arms  about  thee,  call  upon 
thy  name,  and  think  I  hold  my  dear  wife  in  my  embrace. 
.  .  .  Take  me,  0  take  me,  I  beseech,  with  thee  'neath  the 
earth  ; "  and  so  on,  ad  nauseam — a  sickening  display  of  senti- 
mentality, i.e.,  fond  words  belied  by  cowardly,  selfish  actions. 
The  father-in-law  of  Alcestis,  in  his  indignation  at  his 
son's  impertinence  and  lack  of  filial  pity,  exclaims  that  what 
made  Alcestis  sacrifice  herself  was  "  want  of  sense  ;  "  which 
is  quite  true.  But  in  painting  such  a  character,  Euripides's 
chief  motive  appears  to  have  been  to  please  his  audience  by 
enforcing  a  maxim  which  the  Greeks  shared  with  the  Hindoos 
and  barbarians  that  "a  woman,  though  bestowed  upon  a 
worthless  husband,  must  be  content  with  him."  These  words 
are  actually  put  by  him  into  the  mouth  of  Andromache  in  the 
play  of  that  name.  Andromache,  once  the  wife  of  the  Trojan 
Hector,  now  the  concubine  of  Achilles's  son,  is  made  to  de- 
clare to  the  Chorus  that  "  it  is  not  beauty  but  virtuous  acts 
that  win  a  husband's  heart  ; "  whereupon  she  proceeds  to 
spoil  this  fine  maxim  by  explaining  what  the  Greeks  under- 
stood by  " virtuous  acts"  in  a  wife — namely,  subordinating 
herself  even  to  a  "  worthless  husband."  "  Suppose,"  she 
continues,  "  thou  hadst  wedded  a  prince  of  Thrace  .  .  . 
where  one  lord  shares  his  affections  with  a  host  of  wives^ 
would'st  thou  have  slain  them  ?  If  so,  thou  would'st  have 
set  a  stigma  of  insatiate  lust  on  all  our  sex."  And  she  pro- 
ceeds to  relate  how  she  herself  paid  no  heed  in  Troy  to 
Hector's  amours  with  other  women  :  "  Oft  in  days  gone  by  I 
held  thy  bastard  babes  to  my  own  breast,  to  spare  thee  any 
cause  for  grief.  By  this  course  I  bound  my  husband  to  ine 


768  GREEK  LOVE-STORIES   AND    POEMS 

by  virtue's  chains."  To  spare  him  annoyance,  no  matter  how 
much  his  conduct  might  grieve  her — that  was  the  Greek  idea 
of  conjugal  demotion — all  on  one  side.  And  how  like  the  Hin- 
doos, and  Orientals,  and  barbarians  in  general,  is  the  Greek 
seen  to  be  in  the  remarks  made  by  Hermione,  the  legitimate 
wife,  to  Andromache,  the  concubine — accusing  the  latter  of 
having  by  means  of  witchcraft  made  her  barren  and  thus 
caused  her  husband  to  hate  her. 

With  the  subtle  ingenuity  of  masculine  selfishness  the  Greek 
dramatist  doubles  the  force  of  all  his  fine  talk  about  the 
"  virtuous  acts  "  of  wives  by  representing  the  women  them- 
selves as  uttering  these  maxims  and  admitting  that  their 
function  is  self-denial — that  woman  is  altogether  an  inferior 
and  contemptible  being.  "  How  strange  it  is,"  exclaims  An- 
dromache, "  that,  though  some  god  has  devised  cures  for  mor- 
tals against  the  venom  of  reptiles,  no  man  ever  yet  hath  discov- 
ered aught  to  cure  a  woman's  venom,  which  is  far  worse 
than  viper's  sting  or  scorching  flame  ;  so  terrible  a  curse  are 
we  to  mankind."  Hermione  declares  : 

"  Oh  !  never,  never — this  truth  will  I  repeat — should  men 
of  sense,  who  have  wives,  allow  women-folks  to  visit  them  in 
their  homes,  for  they  teach  them  mischief  ;  one,  to  gain  some 
private  end,  helps  to  corrupt  their  honor  ;  another  having 
made  a  slip  herself,  wants  a  companion  in  misfortune,  while 
many  are  wantons  ;  and  hence  it  is  men's  houses  are  tainted. 
Wherefore  keep  strict  guard  upon  the  portals  of  your  houses 
with  bolts  and  bars." 

Bolts  and  bars  were  what  the  gallant  Greek  men  kept  their 
wives  under,  hence  this  custom  too  is  here  slyly  justified  out 
of  a  woman's  mouth.  And  thus  it  goes  on  throughout  the 
pages  of  Euripides.  Iphigenia,  in  one  of  the  two  plays  devoted 
to  her,  declares  :  "  Not  that  I  shrink  from  death,  if  die  I  must, 
—when  I  have  saved  thee  ;  no,  indeed  !  for  a  man's  loss  from 
his  family  is  felt,  while  a  woman's  is  of  little  moment."  In 
the  other  she  declares  that  one  man  is  worth  a  myriad  of 
women — ets  y  avyp  Kpet'oxron/  •ywaiKwi/  /jivpiwv — wherefore,  as 
soon  as  she  realizes  the  situation  at  Aulis,  she  expresses  her 
willingness  to  be  immolated  on  the  altar  in  order  that  the  war 


WOMAN   AND   LOVE    IN   EURIPIDES  769 

against  Troy  may  no  longer  be  delayed  by  adverse  minds. 
She  had,  however,  come  for  a  very  different  purpose,  having 
been,  with  her  queen  mother,  inveigled  from  home  under  the 
pretext  that  Achilles  was  to  make  her  his  wife.  Achilles, 
however,  knew  as  little  of  the  plot  as  she  did,  and  he  is  much 
surprised  when  the  queen  refers  to  his  impending  marriage. 
A  modern  poet  would  have  seen  here  a  splendid,  seemingly 
inevitable,  opportunity  for  a  story  of  romantic  love.  He 
would  have  made  Achilles  fall  in  love  at  sight  of  Iphigenia 
and  resolve  to  save  her  life,  if  need  be  at  the  cost  of  his  own. 
What  use  does  Euripides  make  of  this  opportunity  ?  In  his 
play  Achilles  does  not  see  the  girl  till  toward  the  close  of  the 
tragedy.  He  promises  her  unhappy  mother  that  "  never 
shall  thy  daughter,  after  being  once  called  my  bride,  die  by 
her  father's  hand  ;"  but  his  reason  for  this  is  not  love  for  a 
girl  or  a  chivalrous  attitude  toward  women  in  distress,  but 
offended  vanity.  "It  is  not  to  secure  a  bride  that  I  have 
spoken  thus,"  he  exclaims;  "there  be  maids  unnumbered, 
eager  to  have  my  love — no  !  but  King  Agamemnon  has  put 
an  insult  on  me  ;  he  should  have  asked  my  leave  to  use  my 
name  as  a  means  to  catch  the  child."  In  that  case  he  "would 
never  have  refused  "to  further  his  fellow-soldiers'  common 
interest  by  allowing  the  maiden  to  be  sacrificed. 

It  is  true  that  after  Iphigenia  has  made  her  brave  speech 
declaring  that  a  woman's  life  was  of  no  account  anyway,  and 
that  she  had  resolved  to  die  voluntarily  for  the  army's  sake, 
Achilles  assumes  a  different  attitude,  declaring,  "  Some  god 
was  bent  on  blessing  me,  could  I  but  have  won  thee  for  my 
wife.  .  .  .  But  now  that  I  have  looked  into  thy  noble 
nature,  I  feel  still  more  a  fond  desire  to  win  thee  for  my 
bride,"  and  promising  to  protect  her  against  the  whole  army. 
But  what  was  it  in  Iphigenia  that  thus  aroused  his  admira- 
tion ?  A  feminine  trait,  such  as  would  impress  a  modern 
romantic  lover  ?  Not  in  the  least.  He  admired  her  because, 
like  a  man,  she  offered  to  lay  down  her  life  in  behalf  of  the 
manly  virtue  of  patriotism.  Greek  men  admired  women  only 
in  so  far  as  they  resembled  men  ;  a  truth  to  which  I  shall  re- 
cur on  another  page. 


770          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

It  would  be  foolish  to  chide  Euripides  for  not  making  of 
this  tragedy  a  story  of  romantic  love ;  he  was  a  Greek  and 
could  not  lift  himself  above  his  times  by  a  miracle.  To  him, 
as*  to  all  his  contemporaries,  love  was  not  a  sentiment,  "an 
illumination  of  the  senses  by  the  soul,"  an  impulse  to  noble 
actions,  but  a  common  appetite,  apt  to  become  a  species  of 
madness,  a  disease.  His  Hippolytus  is  a  study  of  this  dis- 
ease, unpleasant  but  striking  ;  it  has  for  its  subject  the  lawless 
pathologic  love  of  Phaedra  for  her  step-son.  She  is  "  seized 
with  wild  desire  ; "  she  "  pines  away  in  silence,  moaning 
beneath  love's  cruel  scourge;^  she  "wastes  away  on  a  bed 
of  sickness  ; "  denies  herself  all  food,  eager  to  reach  death's 
cheerless  bourn  ;  a  canker  wastes  her  fading  charms  ;  she 
is  "stricken  by  some  demon's  curse;"  from  her  eyes  the 
tear-drops  stream,  and  for  very  shame  she  turns  them  away ; 
on  her  soul  "there  rests  a  stain;"  she  knows  that  to  yield 
to  her  "  sickly  passion  "  would  be  "  infamous  ; "  yet  she  can- 
not suppress  her  wanton  thoughts.  Following  the  topsy- 
turvy, unchivalrous  custom  of  the  Greek  poets,  Euripides 
makes  a  wToman— "a  thing  the  world  detests  " — the  victim  of 
this  mad  passion,  opposing  to  it  the  coy  resistance  of  a  man, 
a  devotee  of  the  chaste  Diana.  And  at  the  end  he  makes 
Phaedra,  before  committing  suicide,  write  ^a  infamous  letter 
which,  to  save  her  reputation,  dooms  to  a  cruel  death  the 
innocent  victim  of  her  infatuation. 

To  us,  this  last  touch  alone  would  demonstrate  the  world- 
wide difference  between  lust  and  love.  But  Euripides  knows 
no  such  difference.  To  him  there  is  only  one  kind  of  love, 
and  it  varies  only  in  being  moderate  in  some  cases,  excessive 
in  others.  Love  is  "at  once  the  sweetest  and  the  bitterest 
thing,"  according  as  it  is  one  or  the  other  of  the  two. 
Phaedra's  nurse  deplores. her  passion,  chiefly  because  of  its 
violence.  The  chorus  in  Medea  (627  seqq.)  sings:  "When 
in  excess  and  past  all  limits  Love  doth  come,  he  brings  not 
glory  or  repute  to  man  ;  but  if  the  Cyprian  queen  in  moderate 
might  approach,  no  goddess  is  so  full  of  charm  as  she."  And 
in  Iphigenia  at  Aulis  the  chorus  declares  :  "  Happy  they 
who  find  the  goddess  come  in  moderate  might,  sharing  with 


ROMANTIC   LOVE,    GREEK   STYLE  771 

self-restraint  in  Aphrodite's  gift  of  marriage  and  enjoying 
calm  and  rest  from  frenzied  passions.  ...  Be  mine  de- 
light in  moderate  and  hallowed  (oo-toi)  desires,  and  may  I  have 
a  share  in  love,  but  shun  excess  therein." 

To  Euripides,  as  to  all  the  Greeks,  there  is  no  difference 
in  the  loves  of  gods  and  goddesses  or  kin^s  and  queens  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  lowest  animals  on  the  other.  As  the 
chorus  sings  in  Hippolytus  : 

"  O'er  the  land  and  booming  deep,  on  golden  pinion  borne, 
flits  the  god  of  love,  maddening  the  heart  and  beguiling  the 
senses  of  all  whom  he  attacks,  savage  whelps  on  mountains 
bred,  ocean's  monsters,  creatures  of  this  sun- warmed  earth, 
and  man  ;  thine,  0  Cypris,  thine  alone,  the  sovereign  power 
to  rule  them  all."  1 


ROMANTIC   LOVE,    GREEK   STYLE 

The  Greeks,  instead  of  confuting  my  theory  that  romantic 
love  is  the  last  product  of  civilization,  afford  the  most  striking 
confirmation  of  it.  While  considering  the  love-affairs  of  Afri- 
cans, Australians,  and  other  uncivilized  peoples,  we  were  deal- 
ing with  races  whose  lack  of  intelligence  and  delicacy  in  general 
made  it  natural  to  expect  that  their  love,  too,  must  be  want- 
ing in  psychic  qualities  and  refinement.  But  the  Greeks  were 
of  a  different  calibre.  Not  only  their  men  of  affairs — generals 
and  statesmen — but  their  men  of  thought  and  feeling — phi- 
losophers and  poets — were  among  the  greatest  the  world  has 
ever  seen  ;  yet  these  philosophers  and  poets — who,  as  every- 
where, must  have  been  far  above  the  emotional  level  of  their 
countrymen  in  general — knew  nothing  of  romantic  love. 
What  makes  this  the  more  remarkable  is  that,  so  far  as  their 
minds  were  concerned,  they  were  quite  capable  of  experiencing 
such  a  feeling.  Indeed,  they  were  actually  familiar  with  the 
psychic  and  altruistic  ingredients  of  love ;  sympathy,  devo- 
tion, self-sacrifice,  affection,  are  sometimes  manifested  in  their 
dramas  and  stories  when  dealing  with  the  love  between  par- 
ents and  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  or  pairs  of  friends  like 

1  The  unduly  extolled  'Epw?  chorus  in  the  Antigone  expresses  nothing  more 
than  this  universal  power  of  love  in  the  Greek  conception  of  the  term. 


772          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

Orestes  and  Pylades.  And  strangest  of  all,  they  actually  had 
a  kind  of  romantic  love,  which,  except  for  one  circumstance, 
is  much  like  modern  romantic  love. 

Euripides  knew  this  kind  of  romantic  love.  Among  the 
fragments  that  remain  to  us  of  his  lost  tragedies  is  one  from 
Dictys,  in  which  occurs  this  sentiment :  "  He  was  my  friend, 
and  never  did  loVe  lead  me  to  folly  or  to  Cypris.  Yes,  there 
is  another  kind  of  love,  love  for  the  soul,  honorable,  conti- 
nent, and  good.  Surely  men  should  have  passed  a  law  that 
only  the  chaste  and  self-contained  should  love,  and  Cypris 
[Venus]  should  have  been  banished."  Now  it  is  very  inter- 
esting to  note  that  Euripides  was  a  friend  of  Socrates,  who 
often  declared  that  his  philosophy  was  the  science  of  love, 
and  whose  two  pupils,  Xenophon  and  Plato,  elucidated  this 
science  in  several  of  their  works.  In  Xenophon's  Symposium 
Critobulus  declares  that  he  would  rather  be  blind  to  every- 
thing else  in  the  world  than  not  to  see  his  beloved  ;  that  he 
would  rather  give  all  he  had  to  the  beloved  than  receive  twice 
the  amount  from  another  ;  rather  be  the  beloved's  slave  than 
free  alone  ;  rather  work  and  dare  for  the  beloved  than  live 
alone  in  ease  and  security.  For,  he  continues,  the  enthusi- 
asm which  beauty  inspires  in  lovers  "makes  them  more  gen- 
erous, more  eager  to  exert  themselves,  and  more  ambitious  to 
overcome  dangers,  nay,  it  makes  them  purer  and  more  conti- 
nent, causing  them  to  avoid  even  that  to  which  the  strongest 
appetite  urges  them." 

Several  of  Plato's  dialogues,  especially  the  Symposium  and 
Phwdrus,  also  bear  witness  to  the  fact  that  the  Socratic  con- 
ception of  love  resembled  modern  romantic  love  in  its  ideal  of 
purity  and  its  altruistic  impulses.  Especially  notable  in  this 
respect  are  the  speeches  of  Phaedrus  and  Pausanius  in  the 
Symposium  (175-78),  in  which  love  is  declared  to  be  the 
source  of  the  greatest  benefits  to  us.  There  can  be  no  greater 
blessing  to  a  young  person,  we  read,  than  a  virtuous  lover. 
Such  a  lover  would  rather  die  a  thousand  deaths  than  do  a 
cowardly  or  dishonorable  deed  ;  and  love  would  make  an  in- 
spired hero  out  of  the  veriest  coward.  "  Love  will  make  men 
dare  to  die  for  the  beloved— love  alone."  "  The  actions  of  a 


ROMANTIC   LOVE,    GREEK   STYLE  773 

lover  have  a  grace  which  ennobles  them."  "  From  this  point 
of  view  a  man  fairly  argues  that  in  Athens  to  love  and  be 
loved  is  a  very  honorable  thing."  "  There  is  a  dishonor  in 
being  overcome  by  the  love  of  money,  or  of  wealth,  or  of 
political  power."  "  For  when  the  lover  and  beloved  corne 
together  .  .  .  the  lover  thinks  that  he  is  right  in  doing 
any  service  which  he  can  to  his  gracious  loving  one."  And  in 
the  Republic  (VI. ,  485):  "He  whose  nature  is  amorous  of 
anything  cannot  help  loving  all  that  belongs  or  is  akin  to  the 
object  of  his  affections."  L 

All  this,  as  I  have  said,  suggests  romantic  love,  except  for 
one  circumstance — a  fatal  one,  however.  Modern  romantic 
love  is  an  ecstatic  adoration  of  a  woman  by  a  man  or  of  a  man 
by  a  woman,  whereas  the  romantic  love  described  by  Xeno- 
phon  and  Plato — so-called  "  Platonic  love" — has  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  women.  It  is  a  passionate,  romantic  friend- 
ship between  men  and  boys,  which  (whether  it  really  existed 
or  not)  the  pupils  of  Socrates  dilate  upon  as  the  only  noble, 
exalted  form  of  the  passion  that  is  presided  over  by  Eros. 
On  this  point  they  are  absolutely  explicit.  Of  course  it  would 
not  do  for  a  Greek  philosopher  to  deny  that  a  woman  may 
perform  the  noble  act  of  sacrificing  her  life  for  her  husband 
— that  is  her  ideal  function,  as  we  have  seen — so  Alcestis 
is  praised  and  rewarded  for  giving  up  her  life  ;  yet  Plato 
tells  us  distinctly  (Symp.,  180)  that  this  phase  of  feminine 
love  is,  after  all,  inferior  to  that  which  led  Achilles  to  give 
his  life  for  the  purpose  of  avenging  the  death  of  his  friend 
Patroclus.2  What  chiefly  distinguishes  the  higher  love  from 
the  lower  is,  in  the  opinion  of  the  pupils  of  Socrates,  purity  ; 
and  this  kind  of  love  does  not  exist,  in  their  opinion,  between 
men  and  women.  In  discussing  this  higher  kind  of  love 
both  Plato  and  Xenophon  consistently  and  persistently  ignore 
women,  and  not  only  do  they  ignore  them,  but  they  deliber- 
ately distinguish  between  two  goddesses  of  love,  one  of  whom, 

1  In  Muller's  book  on  the  Doric  race  we  read  (310)  that  the  love  of  the  Cor- 
inthian Philolaus  and  Diocles  "lasted  until  death,"  and  even  their  graves  were 
turned  toward  one  another,  in  token  of  their  affection.  Lovers  in  Athens 
carved  the  beloved's  names  on  walls,  and  innumerable  poems  were  addressed  by 
the  leading  bards  to  their  favorites. 

a  Compare  Ramdohr,  ILL,  191  and  124. 


774          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

the  celestial,  presides — not  over  refined  love  between  men  and 
women,  as  we  would  say — but  over  the  friendships  between 
men  only,  while  the  feelings  toward  women  are  always  in- 
spired by  the  common  goddess  of  sensual  love.  In  Plato's 
Symposium  (181)  this  point  is  made  clear  by  Pausanias  : 

"  The  Love  who  is  the  oif spring  of  the  common  Aphrodite 
is  essentially  common,  and  has  no  discrimination,  being  such 
as  the  meaner  sort  of  men  feel,  and  is  apt  to  be  of  women  as 
well  as  of  youths,  and  is  of  the  body  rather  than  of  the  soul. 
.  .  .  But  the  offspring  of  the  heavenly  Aphrodite  is  de- 
rived from  a  mother  in  whose  birth  the  female  has  no  part, — 
she  is  from  the  male  only ;  this  is  that  love  which  is  of  yonths, 
and  the  goddess  being  older,  there  is  nothing  of  wantonness 
in  her/' 

PLATONIC    LOVE    OF   WOMEN 

In  thus  excluding  women  from  the  sphere  of  pure,  super- 
sensual  romantic  love,  Plato  shows  himself  a  Greek  to  the 
marrow.  In  the  Greek  view,  to  be  a  woman  was  to  be  inferior 
to  man  from  every  point  of  view — even  personal  beauty. 
Plato's  writings  abound  in  passages  which  reveal  his  lofty 
contempt  for  women.  In  the  Laws  (VI.,  781)  he  declares 
that  "  women  are  accustomed  to  creep  into  dark  places,  and 
when  dragged  out  into  the  light  they  will  exert  their  utmost 
powers  of  resistance,  and  be  far  too  much  for  the  legislator." 
While  unfolding,  in  Timceus  (91),  his  theory  of  the  creation 
of  man,  he  says  gallantly  that  "  of  the  men  who  came  into  the 
world,  those  who  were  cowards  or  led  unrighteous  lives  may 
with  reason  be  supposed  to  have  changed  into  the  nature  of 
women  in  the  second  generation  ; "  and  on  another  page  (42) 
he  puts  the  same  idea  even  more  insultingly  by  writing  that 
the  man  "  who  lived  well  during  his  appointed  time  was  to 
return  and  dwell  in  his  native  star,  and  there  he  would  have  a 
blessed  existence.  But  if  he  failed  in  attaining  this,  at  the 
second  birth  he  would  pass  into  a  woman,  and  if,  when  in  that 
state  of  being,  he  did  not  desist  from  evil,  he  would  continually 
be  changed  into  some  brute  who  resembled  him  in  the  evil 
nature  which  he  had  acquired." 

In  other  words,  in  Plato's  mind  a  woman  ranks  half-way 


PLATONIC   LOVE   OF   WOMEN  775 

between  a  man  and  a  brute.  "  Woman's  nature/'  he  says, 
"is  inferior  to  that  of  men  in  capacity  for  virtue  "  (Laios* 
VI.,  781)  ;  and  his  idea  of  ennobling  a  woman  consists  in 
making  her  resemble  a  man,  giving  her  the  same  education, 
the  same  training  in  athletics  and  warlike  exercises,  in  wrest- 
ling naked  with  each  other,  even  though  the  old  and  ugly 
would  be  laughed  at  (Republic,  Bk.  V.).  Fathers,  sons,  moth- 
ers, daughters,  will,  in  his  ideal  republic,  go  to  war  together. 
"  Let  a  man  go  out  to  war  from  twenty  to  sixty  years,  and  for 
a  woman  if  there  appear  any  need  of  making  use  of  her  in 
military  service,  let  the  time  of  service  be  after  she  shall  have 
brought  forth  children  up  to  fifty  years  of  age  "  (Laws,  VI., 
785). 

Having  thus  abolished  woman,  except  as  a  breeder  of  sons, 
Plato  proceeds  to  eliminate  marriage  and  morality.  "  The 
brave  man  is  to  have  more  wives  than  others,  and  he  is  to  have 
first  choice  in  such  matters  more  than  others"  (Republic, 
V.,  468).  All  wives,  however,  must  be  in  common,  no  man 
having  a  monopoly  of  a  woman.  Nor  must  there  be  any 
choice  or  preference  for  individuals.  The  mothers  are  to  be 
arranged  by  officials,  who  will  see  that  the  good  pair  with  the 
good,  the  bad  with  the  bad,  the  offspring  of  the  latter  being 
destroyed,  just  as  is  done  in  the  breeding  of  animals.  Mater- 
nal and  filial  love  also  must  be  abolished,  infants  being  taken 
from  their  mothers  and  educated  in  common.  Nor  must 
husband  and  wife  remain  together  longer  than  is  necessary 
for  the  perpetuation  of  the  species.  This  is  the  only  object  of 
marriage  in  Plato's  opinion  ;  for  he  recommends  (Laivs,  VI., 
784)  that  if  a  couple  have  no  children  after  being  married  ten 
years,  they  should  be  "divorced  for  their  mutual  benefit." 

In  all  history  there  is  not  a  more  extraordinary  spectacle 
than  that  presented  by  the  greatest  philosopher  of  Greece, 
proposing  in  his  ideal  republic  to  eliminate  every  variety  of 
family  affection,  thus  degrading  the  relations  of  the  sexes  to 
a  level  inferior  in  some  respects  even  to  that  of  Australian 
savages,  who  at  least  allow  mothers  to  rear  their  own  children. 
And  this  philosopher,  the  most  radical  enemy  love  has  ever 
known — practically  a  champion  of  promiscuity — has,  by  a 


776          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

strange  irony  of  fate,  lent  his  name  to  the  purest  and  most 
exalted  form  of  love  ! l 


SPARTAN  OPPORTUNITIES  FOR  LOVE 

Had  Plato  lived  a  few  centuries  earlier  he  might  have  vis- 
ited at  least  one  Greek  state  where  his  barbarous  ideal  of  the 
sexual  relations  was  to  a  considerable  extent  realized.  The 
Spartan  law-maker  Lycurgus  shared  his  views  regarding 
marriage,  and  had  the  advantage  of  being  able  to  enforce 
them.  He,  too,  believed  that  human  beings  should  be  bred 
like  cattle.  He  laughed,  so  Plutarch  tells  us  in  his  bio- 
graphic sketch,  at  those  who,  while  exercising  care  in  raising 
dogs  and  horses,  allowed  unworthy  husbands  to  have  off- 
spring. This,  in  itself,  was  a  praiseworthy  thought ;  but  the 
method  adopted  by  Lycurgus  to  overcome  that  objection  was 
subversive  of  all  morality  and  affection.  He  considered  it 
advisable  that  among  worthy  men  there  should  be  a  commu- 
nity of  wives  and  children,  for  which  purpose  he  tried  to 
suppress  jealousy,  ridiculing  those  who  insisted  on  a  conju- 
gal monopoly  and  who  even  engaged  in  fights  on  account  of 
it.  Elderly,  men  were  urged  to  share  their  wives  with  young- 
er men  and  adopt  the  children  as  their  own  ;  and  if  a  man 
considered  another's  wife  particularly  prolific  or  virtuous  he 
was  not  to  hesitate  to  ask  for  |ier.  Bridegrooms  followed 
the  custom  of  capturing  their  brides.  An  attendant,  after 
cutting  off  the  bride's  hair  and  putting  a  man's  garment  on 
her,  left  her  alone  in  the  dark,  whereupon  her  bridegroom 
visited  her,  returning  soon,  however,  to  his  comrades.  For 
months — sometimes  until  after  children  had  been  born — the 
husband  would  thus  be  unable  to  see  his  wife. 

1 1  have  before  me  a  dict'onary  which  defines  Platonic  love  as  it  is  now  uni- 
versally, and  incorrectly,  understood,  as  "  a  pure  spiritual  affection  subsisting 
between  the  sexes,  unmixed  with  carnal  desires,  a  species  of  love  for  which 
Plato  was  a  warm  advocate."  In  reality  Platonic  (i.e.  Socratic)  love  has  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  women,  but  is  a  fantastic  and  probably  hypocritical 
idealization  of  a  species  of  infatuation  which  in  our  day  is  treated  neither  in 
poems  nor  in  dialogues,  nor  discussed  in  text-books  of  psychology  or  phy«iol- 
ogy,  but  relegated  to  treatises  on  mental  diseases  and  abnormalities.  In  fact, 
the  whole  philosophy  of  Greek  love  may  be  summeH  up  in  the  assertion  that 
4i  Platonic  love,"  as  understood  by  us,  was  by  Plato  and  the  Greeks  in  general 
considered  an  impossibility. 


SPARTAN    OPPORTUNITIES    FOR    LOVE        77? 

Reading  Greek  literature  in  the  light  of  modern  science,  it 
is  interesting  to  note  that  we  have  in  the  foregoing  account 
unmistakable  allusions  to  several  primitive  customs  which 
have  prevailed  among  savages  and  barbarians  in  all  parts  of 
the  world.1  The  Greek  writers,  ignorant  of  the  revelations 
of  anthropology  regarding  the  evolution  of  human  habits, 
assumed  such  customs  to  have  been  originated  by  particular 
lawgivers.  This  was  natural  enough  and  pardonable  under 
the  circumstances  ;  but  how  any  modern  writer  can  consider 
such  customs  (whether  aboriginal  or  instituted  by  lawgivers) 
especially  favorable  to  love,  passes  my  comprehension.  Yet 
one  of  the  best  informed  of  my  critics  assured  me  that  "  in 
Sparta  love  was  made  a  part  of  state  policy,  and  opportu- 
nities were  contrived  for  the  young  men  and  women  to  see 
each  other  at  public  games  and  become  enamored/7  As 
usual  in  such  cases,  the  writer  ignores  the  details  regarding 
these  Spartan  opportunities  for  seeing  one  another  and  fall- 
ing in  love,  which  would  have  spoiled  his  argument  by  indi- 
cating what  kind  of  "  love"  was  in  question  here. 

Plutarch  relates  that  Lycurgus  made  the  girls  strip  naked 
and  attend  certain  festivals  and  dance  in  that  state  before 
the  youths,  who  were  also  naked.  Bachelors  who  refused  to 
marry  were  not  allowed  to  attend  these  dances,  which,  as 
Plutarch  adds  with  characteristic  Greek  naivete,  were  "  a 
strong  incentive  to  marriage."  The  erudite  C.  0..  Miiller, 
in  his  history  of  the  Doric  race  (II.,  298),  while  confessing 
that  in  all  his  reading  of  Greek  books  he  had  not  come 
across  a  single  instance  of  an  Athenian  in  love  with  a  free- 
born  woman  and  marrying  her  because  of  a  strong  attach- 
ment, declares  that  Sparta  was  somewhat  different,  personal 

1  In  the  Deipnosophists  of  Athenaeus  (III.,  Bk.  XII.)  we  find  some  other  in- 
formation of  anthropological  significance  :  u  Hermippus  stated  in  his  book 
about  lawgivers  that  at  Lacednemon  all  the  damsels  used  to  be  shut  up  in  a 
dark  room,  while  a  number  of  unmarried  young  men  were  shut  up  with  them  ; 
aud  whichever  girl  each  of  the  young  men  caught  hold  of  he  led  away  as  his 
wife,  without  a  dowry."  u  But  Clearches  the  Solensian,  in  his  treatise  on  Prov- 
erbs, says  :  l  In  Lacedaamon  the  women,  on  a  certain  festival,  drag  the  unmarried 
men  to  an  altar  and  then  buffet  them  ;  in  order  that,  for  the  purpose  of  avoid- 
ing the  insults  of  such  treatment,  they  may  become  more  affectionate  and  in 
due  season  may  turn  their  thoughts  to  marriage.  But  at  Athens  Cecrops  was 
the  first  person  who  married  a  man  to  one  woman  only,  when  before  his  time 
connections  had  taken  place  at  random  and  men  had  their  wives  in  common.'  " 


778  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

attachments  having  been  possible  there  because  the  young 
men  and  women  were  brought  together  at  festivals  and 
dances  ;  but  he  has  the  acumen  to  see  that  this  love  was 
"  not  of  a  romantic  nature/' 1 


AMAZONIAN   IDEAL   OF   GREEK   WOMANHOOD 

Romantic  love,  as  distinguished  from  friendship,  is  de- 
pendent on  sexual  differentiation,  and  the  highest  phases  of 
romantic  love  are  possible  only,  as  we  have  seen,  where  the 
secondary  and  tertiary  sexual  qualities,  physical  and  mental, 
are  highly  developed.  Now  the  Spartans,  besides  maintain- 
ing all  the  love-suppressing  customs  just  alluded  to,  made 
special  and  systematic  efforts  to  convert  their  women  into 
Amazons  devoid  of  all  feminine  qualities  except  such  as  were 
absolutely  necessary  for  the  perpetuation  of  the  species.  One 
of  the  avowed  objects  of  making  girls  dance  naked  in  the 
presence  of  men  was  to  destroy  what  they  considered  as  ef- 
feminate modesty.  The  law  which  forbade  husbands  to  as- 
sociate with  their  wives  in  the  daytime  prevented  the  growth 
of  any  sentimental,  sympathetic  attachment  between  hus- 
band and  wife.  Even  maternal  feeling  was  suppressed,  as 
far  as  possible,  Spartan  mothers  being  taught  to  feel  proud 
and  happy  if  their  sons  fell  in  battle,  disgraced  and  unhappy 
if  they  survived  in  case  of  defeat.  The  sole  object,  in  brief, 
of  Spartan  institutions  relating  to  women  was  to  rear  a  breed 
of  healthy  animals  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  state 

1  My  critics  might  have  convicted  me  of  a  genuine  blunder  inasmuch  as 
m  my  first  book  (78)  I  assumed  that  Plato  "  foresaw  the  importance  of  pre- 
matrimonial  acquaintance  as  the  basis  of  a  rational  and  happy  marriage  choice." 
This  was  an  unwarranted  concession,  because  all  that  Plato  recommended  was 
that  "the  youths  and  maidens  shall  dance  together,  seeing  and  being  seen 
naked,"  after  the  Spartan  manner.  This  might  lead  to  a  rational  choice  of  sound 
bodies,  but  romantic  love  implies'an  acquaintance  of  minds,  and  is  altogether  a 
more  complicated  process  than  the  dog  and  cattle  breeder's  procedure  com- 
mended by  Plato  and  Lycurgus.  I  may  add  that  in  view  of  Lycurgus's  sys- 
tematic encouragement  of  promiscuity,  the  boast  of  the  Spartan  Geradas  (re- 
corded by  Plutarch)  that  there  were  no  cases  of  adultery  in  Sparta,  must  be 
accepted  either  as  broad  sarcasm,  or  in  the  manner  of  Limburg-Brouwer,  who 
declares  (IV.,  165)  that  the  boast  is  "like  saying  that  in  a  band  of  brigands 
there  is  not  a  single  thief."  Even  from  the  cattle-breeding  point  of  view 
Lycurgus  proved  a  failure,  for  according  to  Aristotle  (Pol.  II.,  9)  the  Spar- 
tans grew  too  lazy  to  bring  up  children,  and  rewards  had  to  be  offered  for  large 
families. 


AMAZONIAN  IDEAL  OF  GREEK  WOMANHOOD  779 

with  warriors.  Not  love,  but  patriotism,  was  the  underlying 
motive  of  these  institutions.  To  patriotism,  the  most  mascu- 
line of  all  virtues,  the  lives  of  these  women  were  immolated, 
and  what  made  it  worse  was  that,  while  they  were  reared 
as  men,  these  women  could  not  share  the  honors  of  men. 
Brought  up  as  warriors,  they  were  still  despised  by  the  war- 
riors, who,  when  they  wanted  companionship,  always  sought 
it  in  association  with  comrades  of  their  own  sex.  In  a  word, 
instead  of  honoring  the  female  sex,  the  Spartans  suppressed 
and  dishonored  it.  But  they  brought  on  their  own  punish- 
ment ;  for  the  women,  being  left  in  charge  of  affairs  at  home 
during  the  frequent  absence  of  their  warlike  husbands  and 
sons,  learned  to  command  slaves,  and,  after  the  manner  of  the 
African  Amazons  we  have  read  about,  soon  tried  to  lord  it 
over  their  husbands  too. 

And  this  utter  suppression  of  femininity,  this  glorification 
of  the  Amazon — a  being  as  repulsive  to  every  refined  mind  as 
an  effeminate  man — has  been  lauded  by  a  host  of  writers  as 
emancipation  and  progress  ! 

"  If  your  reputation  for  prowess  and  the  battles  you  have 
fought  were  taken  away  from  you  Spartans,  in  all  else,  be 
very  sure,  you  have  not  your  inferiors,"  exclaims  Peleus  in 
the  Andromache  of  Euripides,  thus  summing  up  Athenian 
opinion  on  Sparta.  There  was,  however,  one  other  respect 
in  which  the  enemies  of  Sparta  admired  her.  C.  0.  Miiller 
alludes  to  it  in  the  following  (II.,  304) :  "  Little  as  the 
Athenians  esteemed  their  own  women,  they  involuntarily 
revered  the  heroines  of  Sparta,  such  as  Gorgo,  the  wife  of 
Leonidas ;  Lampito,  the  daughter  of  Leotychidas,  the  wife 
of  Archidamus  and  mother  of  Agis."  This  is  not  surprising, 
for  in  Athens,  as  among  the  Spartans  and  all  other  Greeks, 
patriotism  was  the  supreme  virtue,  and  women  could  be  com- 
pared with  men  only  in  so  far  as  they  had  the  opportunity 
and  courage  to  participate  in  this  masculine  virtue.  Aris- 
totle appears  to  have  been  the  only  Greek  philosopher  who 
recognized  the  fact  that  "  each  sex  has  its  own  peculiar 
virtues  in  which  the  other  rejoices  ; "  yet  there  is  no  indica- 
tion that  even  he  meant  by  this  anything  more  than  the 


780          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

qualities  in  a  woman  of  being  a  good  nurse  and  a  chaste 
housemaid.1  Plato,  as  we  have  seen,  considered  woman  in- 
ferior to  man  because  she  lacked  the  masculine  qualities 
which  he  would  have  liked  to  educate  into  her  ;  and  this 
remained  the  Greek  attitude  to  the  end,  as  we  realize  viv- 
idly on  reading  the  special  treatise  of  Plutarch — who  flour- 
ished nearly  half  a  thousand  years  after  Plato — On  the  Virt- 
ues of  Women,  in  which,  by  way  of  proving  "  that  the  virtues 
of  a  man  and  a  woman  do  not  differ/'  a  number  of  stories  are 
told  of  heroic  deeds,  military,  patriotic,  and  otherwise,  per- 
formed by  women. 

Greek  ideas  on  womanhood  are  admirably  symbolized  in 
their  theology.  Of  their  four  principal  goddesses — using  the 
more  familiar  Latin  names — Juno  is  a  shrew,  Venus  a  wan- 
ton, while  Minerva  and  Diana  are  Amazons  or  hermaphro- 
dites— masculine  minds  in  female  bodies.  In  Juno,  as  Glad- 
stone has  aptly  said,  the  feminine  character  is  strongly 
marked ;  but,  as  he  himself  is  obliged  to  admit,  "  by  no 
means  on  its  higher  side."  Regarding  Minerva,  he  remarks 
with  equal  aptness  that  "  she  is  a  goddess,  not  a  god ;  but 
she  has  nothing  of  sex  except  the  gender,  nothing  of  the 
woman  except  the  form."  She  is  the  goddess,  among  other 
things,  of  war.  Diana  spends  all  her  time  hunting  and 
slaughtering  animals,  and  she  is  not  only  a  perpetual  virgin 
but  ascetically  averse  to  love  and  feminine  tenderness — as  un- 
sympathetic a  being  as  was  ever  conceived  by  human  imagina- 
tion— as  unnatural  and  ludicrous  as  her  devotee,  the  Hippo- 
lytus  of  Euripides.  She  is  the  Amazon  of  Amazons,  and  was 
represented  dressed  as  an  Amazon.  Of  course  she  is  pictured 
as  the  tallest  of  women,  and  it  is  in  regard  to  the  question  of 
stature  that  the  Greeks  once  more  betray  their  ultra-mascu- 
line inability  to  appreciate  true  femininity  ;  as,  for  example, 
in  the  stupid  remark  of  Aristotle  (Eth.  Nicom.,  IV.,  7),  TO 

KaXXos  lv  /xeydAo)   <ra>/x<m,  ot  /u/cpoi   8'   dcrrctoi   /cat    cru/x/xerpoi,  /caAot 

1  See  the  evidence  cited  in  Becker  (III.,  315)  regarding  Aristotle's  views  as 
to  the  inferiority  of  women.  After  comparing  it  with  the  remarks  of  other 
writers  Becker  sums  up  the  matter  by  saying  that  "the  virtue  of  which  a 
woman  was  in  those  days  considered  capable  did  not  differ  very  much  from  that 
of  a  faithful  slave." 


ATHENIAN   ORIENTALISM  781 

8*  ov — "  beauty  consists  in  a  large  body  ;  the  petite  are  pretty 
and  symmetrical,  but  not  beautiful."1 

i 
ATHENIAN   ORIENTALISM 

Both  Diana  and  Venus  were  brought  to  Greece  from  Asia. 
Indeed,  when  we  examine  Greek  life  in  the  light  of  compar- 
ative Culturgeschichte,  we  find  a  surprising  prevalence  of 
Oriental  customs  arid  ideas,  especially  in  Athens,  and  partic- 
ularly in  the  treatment  of  women.  In  this  respect  Athens  is 
the  antipode  of  Sparta.  While  at  Sparta  the  women  wrestled 
naked  with  the  men,  in  Athens  the  women  were  not  even  per- 
mitted to  witness  their  games.  The  Athenians  moreover  had 
very  decided  opinions  about  the  effect  of  Spartan  customs. 
The  beautiful  Helen  who  caused  the  Trojan  war  by  her 
adulterous  elopement  was  a  Spartan,  and  the  Athenian  Eu- 
ripides makes  Peleus  taunt  her  husband  Menelaus  in  these 
words  :  "  Thou  who  didst  let  a  Phrygian  rob  thee  of  thy  wife, 
leaving  thy  home  without  bolt  or  guard,  as  if  forsooth  the 
cursed  woman  thou  hadst  was  a  model  of  virtue.  No !  a 
Spartan  maid  could  not  be  chaste,  e'en  if  she  would,  who 
leaves  her  home  and  bares  her  limbs  and  lets  her  robe  float 
free,  to  share  with  youth  their  races  and  their  sports — customs 
I  cannot  away  with.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  ye  fail  to  educate 
your  women  in  virtue  ?  " 

The  Athenian,  to  be  sure,  did  not  any  more  than  the  Spar- 
tan educate  his  women  in  virtue.  What  he  did  was  to  compel 
them  to  be  virtuous  by  locking  them  up  in  the  Oriental  style. 
Unlike  the  Spartan,  the  Athenian  had  a  regard  for  paternity 
and  genealogy,  and  the  only  way  he  knew  to  insure  it  was  the 
Asiatic.  He  failed  to  make  the  discovery  that  the  best  safe- 
guard of  woman's  virtue  is  education — as  witness  America  ; 
and  to  this  failure  is  due  to  a  large  extent  the  collapse  of 
Greek  civilization.  Athenian  women  were  more  chaste  than 

1  In  the  Odyssey  (XV.,  418)  Homer  speaks  of  "  a  Phoenician  woman,  handsome 
and  tall"  He  makes  Odysseus  compare  Nausicaato  Diana  u  in  beauty,  height, 
and  bearing,"  and  in  another  place  he  declares  that,  like  Diana  among  her 
nymphs,  she  o'ertops  her  companions  by  head  and  brow  (VI.,  152,  102).  How- 
ever, this  manner  of  measuring  beauty  with  a  yard-stick  indicates  some  progress 
over  the  savage  and  Oriental  custom  of  making  rotundity  the  criterion  of  beauty. 


782          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

Spartans  because  they  had  to  be,  and  they  were  superior  also 
in  being  less  masculine  ;  but  the  topsy-turvy  Athenian  men 
looked  down  on  them  because  they  were  not  more  masculine 
and  because  they  lacked  the  education  which  they  themselves 
perversely  refused  to  give  them !  Few  Athenian  women 
could  read  or  write,  nor  had  they  much  use  for  such  accom- 
plishments, being  practically  condemned  to  life-long  impris- 
onment. The  men  indorsed  the  Oriental  idea  that  educating 
a  woman  is  an  unwise  and  reprehensible  thing.1 

Widely  as  the  Athenian  way  of  treating  women  differed 
from  the  Spartan,  the  result  was  the  same — the  frustration 
of  pure  love.  The  girls  were  married  off  in  their  early  teens, 
before  what  little  mind  they  had  was  developed,  to  men  whom 
they  had  never  seen  before,  and  in  the  selection  of  whom  they 
were  not  consulted  ;  the  result  being,  in  the  words  of  a 
famous  orator,  that  the  men  married  respectable  women  for 
the  sake  of  rearing  legitimate  offspring,  keeping  concubines 
for  the  daily  wants  and  care  of  the  body,  and  associating  with 
hetairai  for  pleasant  companionship.  Hence,  as  Becker 
justly  remarks  (III.,  337),  though  we  come  across  stories  of 
passionate  love  in  the  pages  of  Terence  (i.  e.  Menander)  and 
other  Greek  writers,  "sensuality  was  always  the  soil  from 
which  such  passion  sprang,  and  none  other  than  a  sensual 
love  between  a  man  and  a  woman  was  even  acknowledged/' 


LITERATURE   AKD   LIFE 

Although  dogs  are  the  most  intelligent  of  all  animals  and 
at  the  same  time  proverbial  for  their  faithful  attachment  to 
their  masters,  they  are  nevertheless,  as  I  have  before  pointed 
out,  in  their  sexual  relations  utterly  incapable  of  that  ap- 
proximation to  conjugal  love  which  we  find  instinctive  in 
some  birds.  Most  readers  of  this  book,  too,  are  probably  ac- 
quainted with  men  and  women,  who  while  highly  educated 
and  refined,  as  well  as  devoted  to  the  members  of  their  fam- 
ily, are  strangers  to  romantic  love ;  and  I  have  pointed  out 

1  Compare  Menander,  Frag.  Incert. ,  154 :  ywalx  b  SiSao-wav  yp<vx/u.ar  ou 

WOtci. 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE  783 

(302)  that  men  of  genius  may  in  this  respect  be  in  the  same 
boat  as  ordinary  mortals.  In  view  of  these  considerations, 
and  of  the  rarity  of  true  love  even  in  modern  Europe  and 
America,  it  surely  is  not  unnatural  or  reckless  to  assume 
that  there  may  have  been  whole  nations  in  this  predicament, 
though  they  were  as  advanced  in  many  other  respects  as  were 
the  Greeks  and  as  capable  of  other  forms  of  domestic  attach- 
ment. Yet,  as  I  remarked  on  page  6,  several  writers,  includ- 
ing so  eminent  a  thinker  as  Professor  William  James,  have 
held  that  the  Greeks  could  have  differed  from  us  only  in 
their  ideas  about  love,  and  not  in  their  feelings  themselves. 
"It  is  incredible,"  he  remarks  in  the  review  referred  to, 
"  that  individual  women  should  not  at  all  times  have  had 
the  power  to  fill  individual  manly  breasts  with  enchanted 
respect.  ...  So  powerful  and  instinctive  an  emotion  can 
never  have  been  recently  evolved.  But  our  ideas  about  our 
emotions,  and  the  esteem  in  which  we  hold  them,  differ  very 
much  from  one  generation  to  another."  In  the  next  para- 
graph he  admits,  however,  that  "no  doubt  the  way  in  which 
we  think  about  our  emotions  reacts  on  the  emotions  them- 
selves, dampening  or  inflaming  them,  as  the  case  may  be  ;  " 
and  in  this  admission  he  really  concedes  the  whole  matter. 
The  main  object  of  my  chapter  "  How  Sentiments  Change 
and  Grow "  is  to  show  how  men's  ideas  regarding  nature, 
religion,  murder,  polygamy,  modesty,  chastity,  incest,  affect 
and  modify  their  feelings  in  relation  to  them,  thus  furnish- 
ing indirectly  a  complete  answer  to  the  objection  made  to  my 
theory.1 

Now  the  ideas  which  the  Greeks  had  about  their  women 
could  not  but  dampen  any  elevated  feelings  of  love  that 
might  otherwise  have  sprung  up  in  them.  Their  literature 
attests  that  they  considered  love  a  degrading,  sensual  passion, 

1  A  homely  but  striking  illustration  may  here  be  added.  In  Africa  the  ne- 
groes are  proud  of  their  complexion  and  look  with  aversion  on  a  white  skin. 
In  the  United  States,  knowing  that  a  black  skin  is  looked  down  on  as  a  symbol 
of  slavery  or  inferiority,  they  are  ashamed  of  it.  The  wife  of  an  eminent 
Southern  judge  informed  me  that  Georgia  negroes  believe  that  in  heaven  they 
will  be  white  ;  and  I  have  heard  of  one  negro  woman  who  declared  that  if  she 
could  become  white  bv  being  flayed  she  would  gladly  submit  to  the  torture. 
Thus  have  irlens  regarding  the  complexion  changed  the  emotion  of  pride  to  the 
emotion  of  shame. 


784          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

not  an  ennobling,  supersensual  sentiment,  as  we  do.  With 
such  an  idea  how  could  they  have  possibly  felt  toward 
women  as  we  do  ?  With  the  idea  firmly  implanted  in  their 
minds  that  women  are  in  every  respect  the  inferiors  of  men, 
how  could  they  have  experienced  that  emotional  state  of  ec- 
static adoration  and  worship  of  the  beloved  which  is  the  very 
essence  of  romantic  love  ?  Of  necessity,  purity  and  adoration 
were  thus  entirely  eliminated  from  such  love  as  they  were 
capable  of  feeling  toward  women.  Nor  can  they,  though 
noted  for  their  enthusiasm  for  beautiful  human  forms,  have 
risen  above  sensualism  in  the  admiration  of  the  personal 
beauty  of  women  ;  for  since  their  girls  were  left  to  grow  up 
in  utter  ignorance,  neither  their  faces  nor  their  minds  can 
have  been  of  the  kind  which  inspires  supersensual  love. 
With  boys  it  was  different.  They  were  educated  mentally 
as  well  as  physically,  and  hence  as  Winckelmann — himself  a 
Greek  in  this  respect — has  remarked,  "  the  supreme  beauty 
of  Greek  art  is  male  rather  than  female."  If  the  healthy 
Greek  mind  could  be  so  utterly  different  from  the  healthy 
modern  mind  in  regard  to  the  love  of  boys,  why  not  in  re- 
gard to  the  love  of  women  ?  The  perverseness  of  the  Greeks 
in  this  respect  was  so  great  that,  as  we  have  seen,  they  not 
only  adored  boys  while  despising  women,  but  preferred  mas- 
culine women  to  feminine  women. 

But  the  most  serious  oversight  of  the  champions  of  Greek 
love  is  that  they  regard  love  as  merely  an  emotion,  or  group 
of  emotions,  whereas,  as  I  have  shown,  its  most  essential  in- 
gredients and  only  safe  criteria  are  the  altruistic  impulses  of 
gallantry  and  self-sacrifice,  allied  with  sympathy  and  affec- 
tion. That  there  was  no  gallantry  and  self-sacrifice  in 
Greek  love  of  women  I  have  already  indicated  (188,  197,  203, 
163)  ;  and  that  there  was  no  sympathy  in  it  is  obvious  from 
the  heartless  way  in  which  the  men  treated  the  women — in 
life  I  mean,  not  merely  in  literature — refusing  to  allow  them 
the  least  liberty  of  movement,  or  choice  in  marriage,  or  to  give 
them  an  education  which  would  have  enabled  them  to  enjoy 
the  higher  pleasures  of  life  on  their  own  account.  As  for 
affection,  it  is  needless  to  add  that  it  cannot  exist  where  there 


GREEK   LOVE   IN   AFRICA  785 

is  no  sympathy,  no  gallant  kindness  and  courtesy,  and  no 
willingness  to  sacrifice  one's  selfish  comfort  or  pleasures  for 
another. 

Of  course  we  know  all  these  things  only  on  the  testimony 
of  Greek  literature ;  but  it  would  surely  be  the  most  extraor- 
dinary thing  in  the  world  if  these  altruistic  impulses  had  ex- 
isted in  Greek  life,  and  Greek  literature  had  persistently  and 
absolutely  ignored  them,  while  on  the  other  hand  it  is  con- 
stantly harping  on  the  other  ingredients  of  love  which  also 
accompany  lust.  If  literature  has  any  historic  value  at  all,  if 
we  can  ever  regard  it  as  a  mirror  of  life,  we  are  entitled  to  the 
inference  that  romantic  love  was  unknown  to  the  Greeks  of 
Europe,  whereas  the  caresses  and  refinements  and  ardent 
longings  of  sensual  love — including  hyperbole  and  the  mixed 
moods  of  hope  and  despair — were  familiar  to  them  and  are 
often  expressed  by  them  in  poetic  language  (see  137,  140-44, 
295,  299).  I  say  the  Greeks  of  Europe,  to  distinguish  them 
from  those  of  Greater  Greece,  whose  capacities  for  love  we  still 
have  to  consider. 

GREEK    LOVE   IX    AFRICA 

It  is  amusing  to  note  the  difference  of  opinion  prevailing 
among  the  champions  of  Greek  love  as  to  the  time  when  it 
began  to  be  sentimental  and  "  modern."  Some  boldly  go 
back  to  Homer,  at  the  threshold  of  literature.  Many  begin 
with  Sappho,  some  with  Sophocles,  and  a  host  with  Euripides. 
Menander  is  the  starting-point  to  others,  while  Benecke  has 
written  a  book  to  prove  that  the  credit  of  inventing  modern 
love  belongs  to  Antimachus  of  Colophon.  The  majority  hesi- 
tate to  go  back  farther  than  the  Alexandrian  school  of  the 
fourth  century  before  Christ,  while  some  modestly  content 
themselves  with  the  romancers  of  the  fourth  or  fifth  centu- 
ries after  Christ — thus  allowing  a  latitude  of  twelve  or  thir- 
teen hundred  years  to  choose  from. 

We  for  our  part,  having  applied  our  improved  chemical 
test  to  such  love  as  is  recorded  in  the  prose  and  verse  of 
Classical  Greece,  and  having  found  the  elements  of  romantic 
sentiment  missing,  must  now  examine  briefly  what  traces  of 


786          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

it  may  occur  in  the  much-vaunted  erotic  poems  and  stories 
of  Greater  Greece,  notably  the  capital  of  Egypt  in  the  third 
century  before  Christ. 

It  is  true  that  of  the  principal  poets  of  the  Alexandrian 
school — Theocritus,  Callimachus,  and  Apollonius — only  the 
last  named  was  probably  a  native  of  Alexandria ;  but  the 
others  made  it  their  home  and  sphere  of  influence,  being  at- 
tracted by  the  great  library,  which  contained  all  the  treas- 
ures of  Greek  literature,  and  other  inducements  which  the 
Ptolemies  held  out  to  men  of  letters.  Thus  it  is  permissible 
to  speak  of  an  African  or  Alexandrian  period  of  Greek  litera- 
ture, all  the  more  as  the  cosmopolitan  influences  at  work  at 
Alexandria  gave  this  literature  a  peculiar  character  of  its 
own,  erotically  as  well  as  otherwise,  which  tinged  Greek  writ- 
ings from  that  time  on. 

In  reading  Homer  we  are  struck  by  the  utter  absence  not 
only  of  stories  of  romantic  love  but  of  romantic  love-stories. 
Even  the  relations  of  Achilles  and  Briseis,  which  offered  such 
fine  romantic  opportunities,  are  treated  in  an  amazingly  pro- 
saic manner.  An  emphatic  change  in  this  respect  is  hardly 
to  be  noted  till  we  come  to  Euripides,  who,  though  ignorant 
of  romantic  love,  gave  women  and  their  feelings  more  atten- 
tion than  they  had  previously  received  in  literature.  Aris- 
tophanes, in  several  of  his  plays,  gave  vent  to  his  indignation 
at  this  new  departure,  but  the  tendency  continued  in  the 
New  Comedy  (Menander  and  others),  which  gave  up  the  ever- 
lasting Homeric  heroes  and  introduced  everyday  contempo- 
rary scenes  and  people.  Thus  the  soil  was  prepared  for 
the  Alexandrians,  but  it  was  with  them  that  the  new  plant 
reached  its  full  growth.  Not  content  with  following  the 
example  of  the  New  Comedy,  they  took  up  the  Homeric 
personages  again,  gods  as  well  as  heroes,  but  in  a  very  differ- 
ent fashion  from  that  of  their  predecessors,  proceeding  to 
sentimentalize  them  to  their  hearts'  content,  the  gods  being 
represented  as  sharing  all  the  amorous  weaknesses  of  mortals, 
differing  from  them  only,  as  Rohde  remarks  (107),  in  being 
even  more  fickle  than  they,  eternally  changing  their  loves. 

The  infusion  of  this  romantic  spirit  into  the  dry  old  myths 


I 

GREEK   LOVE   IN  AFRICA  787 

undoubtedly  brings  the  poems  and  stories  of  the  Alexan- 
drians and  their  imitators  a  step  nearer  to  modern  conditions. 
The  poets  of  the  Alexandrian  period  must  also  be  credited 
with  being  the  first  who  made  love  (sensual  love,  I  mean) — 
which  had  played  so  subordinate  a  role  in  the  old  epics  and 
tragedies — the  central  feature  of  interest,  thus  setting  a 
fashion  which  has  continued  without  interruption  to  the 
present  day.  As  Couat  puts  it,  with  the  pardonable  exag- 
geration of  a  specialist  (155)  :  "  Les  Alexandrins  n'ont  pas 
invente  Tamour  dans  la  litterature  .  .  .  mais  ils  ont  cree 
la  litterature  de  Famour."  Their  way  of  treating  love  was 
followed  in  detail  by  the  Roman  poets,  especially  Ovid,  Ca- 
tullus, Propertius,  and  Tibullus,  and  by  the  Greek  novel- 
ists, Xenophon  Ephesius,  Heliodorus,  Achilles  Tatius,  Char- 
iton,  Longus,  etc.,  up  to  the  fourth  or  fifth  centuries  (dates 
are  uncertain)  of  our  era. 

There  is  a  "  suprising  similarity  "  in  the  descriptions  of  love- 
affairs  by  all  these  writers,  as  is  noted  by  Rohde,  who  devotes 
twenty  pages  (145-165,  chiefly  foot-notes,  after  the  fashion 
of  German  professors)  to  detailed  proof  of  his  assertion. 
The  substance  of  these  pages,  may,  however  be  summed  up 
very  briefly,  under  seventeen  heads.  In  all  these  writings, 
if  the  girl  is  represented  as  being  respectable,  (1)  the  lovers 
meet  or  see  each  other  for  the  first  time  at  religious  festi- 
vals, as  those  were  practically  the  only  occasions  where  such 
women  could  appear  in  public.  (2)  The  love  is  sudden,  at 
first  sight,  no  other  being  possible  under  circumstances  that 
permit  of  no  prolonged  courtship.  (3)  The  youth  is  repre- 
sented as  having  previously  felt  a  coy,  proud  aversion  to  the 
goddess  of  love,  who  now  avenges  herself  by  smiting  him  with 
a  violent,  maddening  passion.  (4)  The  love  is  mutual,  and  it 
finds  its  way  to  the  heart  through  the  eyes.  (5)  Cupid  with  his 
arrows,  urged  on  by  Venus,  is  gradually  relegated  to  the  back- 
ground as  a  shadowy  abstraction.  (6)  Both  the  youth  and  the 
maiden  are  extraordinarily  beautiful.  No  attempt  is  made, 
however,  to  describe  the  points  of  beauty  in  detail,  after  the 
dry  fashion  of  the  Oriental  and  the  later  Byzantine  authors. 
Hyperbole  is  used  in  comparing  the  complexion  to  snow,  the 


788  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES    AND    POEMS 

cheeks  to  roses,  etc  ;  but  the  favorite  way  of  picturing  a  youth 
or  maiden  is  to  compare  the  same  to  some  one  of  the  gods  or 
goddesses  who  were  types  familiar  to  all  through  pictures  and 
statues — a  characteristically  Greek  device,  going  back  as  far 
as  Hesiod  and  Homer.  (7)  The  passion  of  the  lovers  is  a 
genuine  disease,  which  (8)  monopolizes  their  souls,  and  (9) 
makes  them  neglect  the  care  of  the  body,  (10)  makes  pallor 
alternate  with  blushes,  (11)  deprives  them  of  sleep,  or  fills 
their  dreams  with  the  beloved ;  (12)  it  urges  them  to  seek 
solitude,  and  (13)  to  tell  their  woes  to  the  trees  and  rocks, 
which  (14)  are  supposed  to  sympathize  with  them.  (15)  The 
passion  is  incurable,  even  wine,  the  remedy  for  other  cares, 
serving  only  to  aggravate  it.  (16)  Like  Orientals,  the  lovers 
may  swoon  away  or  fall  into  dangerous  illness.  (17)  The 
lover  cuts  the  beloved's  name  into  trees,  follows  her  footsteps, 
consults  the  flower  oracle,  wishes  he  were  a  bee  so  he  could 
fly  to  her,  and  at  the  banquet  puts  his  lips  to  the  spot  where 
she  drank  from  the  cup. 

Having  finished  his  list  of  erotic  traits,  Rohde  confesses 
frankly  that  it  "embraces,  to  be  sure,  only  a  limited  number 
of  the  simplest  symptoms  of  love."  But  instead  of  drawing 
therefrom  the  obvious  inference  that  love  which  has  no  other 
symptoms  than  those  is  very  far  from  being  like  modern  love, 
he  adds  perversely  and  illogically  that  "  in  its  essential  traits, 
this  passion  is  presumably  the  same  at  all  times  and  with  all 
nations."  l 

1  Professor  Rohde  appears  to  follow  the  old  metaphysical  maxim  "  If  facts  do 
not  agree  with  my  theory,  so  much  the  worse  for  the  facts."  He  piles  up  pages 
of  evidence  which  show  conclusively  that  these  Greeks  knew  nothing  of  the 
higher  traits  and  symptoms  of  love,  and  then  he  adds  :  "  but  they  in'uKt  have 
known  them  all  the  same."  To  give  one  instance  of  his  contradictory  procedure. 
On  page  70  he  admits  that,  as  women  were  situated,  the  tender  and  passionate 
courtship  of  the  youths  as  described  in  poems  and  romances  of  the  period 
"  could  hardly  have  been  copied  from  life,"  because  the  Greek  custom  of  allow- 
ing the  fathers  to  dispose  of  their  daughters  without  consulting  their  wishes 
was  incompatible  with  the  poetry  of  such  courting.  "  It  is  very  significant,"  he 
adds,  "that  among  the  numerous  references  to  the  ways  of  obtaining  brides 
made  by  poets  and  moral  philosophers,  including  those  of  the  Hellenistic  [Al- 
exandrian] period,  and  collected  by  Stobaeus  in  chapters  70,  71,  and  73  of  his 
Florilegium,  love  is  never  mentioned  among  the  motives  of  marriage  choice." 
In  the  next  sentence  he  declares  nevertheless  that  "  no  one  would  be  so  foolish 
as  to  deny  the  existence  of  pure,  strong  love  in  the  Greek  life  of  this  period  ;  " 
and  ten  lines  farther  on  he  backs  down  again,  admitting  that  though  there  may 
be  indications  of  supersensual,  sentimental  love  in  the  literature  of  this  period 
these  traits  had  not  yet  taken  hold  of  the  life  of  these  men,  though  there  were 


ALEXANDRIAN    CHIVALRY  789 

ALEXANDRIAN    CHIVALRY. 

It  is  in  the  Alexandrian  period  of  Greek  literature  and  art 
that,  according  to  Helbig  (194),  "  we  first  meet  traits  that 
suggest  the  adoration  of  women  (Frauencultus)  and  gallan- 
try/' This  opinion  is  widely  prevalent,  a  special  instance  be- 
ing that  ecstatic  exclamation  of  Professor  Ebers  :  "  Can  we 
assume  even  the  gallantry  of  love  to  have  been  unknown  in  a 
country  where  the  hair  of  a  queen,  Berenice,  was  transferred 
as  a  constellation  to  the  skies  ?"  In  reality  this  act  was  in- 
spired by  selfish  adulation  and  had  not  the  remotest  connec- 
tion with  love. 

The  story  in  brief  is  as  follows  :  Shortly  after  his  marriage 
to  Berenice,  Ptolemy  went  on  an  expedition  into  Syria.  To 
insure  his  safe  return  to  Egypt  Berenice  vowed  to  conse- 
crate her  beautiful  hair  to  Venus.  On  his  return  she  fulfilled 
her  vow  in  the  temple  ;  but  on  the  following  day  her  hair 
could  not  be  found.  To  console  the  king  and  the  queen,  and  to 
conciliate  the  royal  favor,  the  astronomer  Conon  declared  that 
the  locks  of  Berenice  had  been  removed  by  divine  interposition 
and  transferred  to  the  skies  in  the  form  of  a  constellation.1 

A  still  more  amusing  instance  of  Alexandrian  "  gallantry  " 
is  to  be  found  in  the  case  of  the  queen  Stratonice,  whose 
court-poets  were  called  upon  to  compete  with  each  other  in 
singing  of  the  beauty  of  her  locks.  The  fact  that  she  was 
bald,  did  not,  as  a  matter  of  course,  make  the  slightest  differ- 
ence in  this  kind  of  homage. 

lone/ings  for  them.  And  at  the  end  of  the  paragraph  he  emphasizes  his  back- 
down by  declaring  that  "  the  very  essence  of  sentimental  poetry  is  the  longing  for 
what  does  not  exist.'1'1  ( ht  dock  das  rechte  ElftnfntfffTtifts  der  se'ntimentalett  Pix-xle 
die  Sehn&iicht  nach  dem  ni.cht  VorhandencnJ)  What  makes  this  admission  the 
more  significant  is  that  Professor  Rohde,  in  speaking  of  "sentimental "  ele- 
ments, does  not  even  use  that  word  as  the  adjective  of  sentiment  but  of  senti- 
mentality. He  defines  this  Sentimentalitat  to  which  he  refers  as  a  tl  Scfmcii^ 
Shnif-n  nnd  Ifqff en, "  a  "  Selb&tyenn&s  der  Lcirfenschaft  " — a  u  longing,  dream- 
ing, and  hoping,"  a  "revelling  in  (literally,  pelf -enjoying  of )  passion."  In  other 
words,  an  enjoyment  of  emotion  for  emotion's  sake,  a  gloating  over  one's  f-elfish 
joys  and  sorrows.  Now  in  this  respect  I  actually  go  beyond  Rohde  as  a  champion 
of  Greek  love  !  Such  Sentimentalitat  existed,  I  am  convinced,  in  Alexandri- 
an life  as  well  as  in  Alexandrian  literature  ;  but  of  the  existence  of  true  super- 
sensnal  altruistic  sentiment  I  can  find  no  evidence.  The  trouble  with  Rohde,  as 
with  so  many  who  have  written  on  this  subject,  is  that  he  has  no  clear  idea  of 
the  distinction  between  sensual  love,  which  is  selfish  (Selbstgenuss)  and  ro- 
mant,ic  love,  which  is  altruistic;  hence  he  flounders  in  hopeless  contradictions. 
1  See  Anthon,  ^58,  and  the  authors  there  referred  to. 


790          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

Unlike  his  colleagues,  Kohde  was  not  misled  into  accept- 
ing such  adulation  of  queens  as  evidence  of  adoration  of 
women  in  general.  In  several  pages  of  admirable  erudition 
(63-69),  which  I  commend  to  all  students  of  the  subject, 
he  exposes  the  hollowness  and  artificiality  of  this  so-called 
Alexandrian  chivalry.  Fashion  ordained  that  poems  should 
be  addressed  to  women  of  exalted  rank  :  "  As  the  queens 
were,  like  the  kings,  enrolled  among  the  gods,  the  court- 
poets,  of  course,  were  not  allowed  to  neglect  the  praise  of  the 
queens,  and  they  were  called  upon  to  celebrate  the  royal 
weddings  ;  *  nay,  in  the  extravagance  of  their  gallant  homage 
they  rose  to  a  level  of  bad  taste  the  pinnacle  of  which  was 
reached  by  Gallimachus  in  his  elegy — so  well-known  through 
the  imitation  of  Catullus — on  the  hair  of  queen  Berenice 
placed  among'  the  constellations  by  the  courtesy  of  the  astron- 
omer Conon."  He  then  proceeds  to  explain  that  we  must  be 
careful  not  to  infer  from  such  a  courtly  custom  that  other 
women  enjoyed  the  freedom  and  influence  of  the  queen  or 
shared  their  compliments.  "  In  actual  life  a  certain  chival- 
rous attitude  toward  women  existed  at  most  toward  hetairai, 
in  which  case,  as  a  matter  of  course,  it  was  adulterated  with  a 
very  unpleasant  ingredient  of  frivolous  sentimentality.  .  .  . 
Of  an  essential  change  in  the  position  of  respectable  girls  and 
women  there  is  no  indication."  Though  there  were  a  number 
of  learned  viragoes,  there  is  "absolutely  no  evidence"  that 
women  in  general  received  the  compliment  and  benefit  of  an 
education.  The  poems  of  Phil  etas  and  Callimachus,  like 
those  of  Propertius  and  Ovid,  so  far  as  they  referred  to 
women,  appealed  only  to  the  wanton  hetairai.  As  late  as  our 
first  century  Plutarch  felt  called  upon  to  write  a  treatise, 
on  Koi  ywacKas  TratSevreov — s<  that  women  too  should  be  edu- 
cated." Cornelius  Nepos  still  speaks  of  the  gynaikonitis  as 
the  place  where  women  spend  their  time.  ' '  In  particular, 
the  emancipation  of  virgins  from  the  seclusion  of  their  jeal- 
ous confinement  would  have  implied  a  revolution  in  all  social 

1  See  Theocritus,  Idyll  XVII.  Regarding  the  silly  and  degrading  adulation 
which  the  Alexandrian  court-poets  were  called  upon  to  bestow  on  the  kings  and 
queens,  and  its  demoralizing  effect  on  literature,  see  also  Christ's  Griechische 
Litteraturgexchichte,  493-494  and  507. 


ALEXANDRIAN   CHIVALRY  791 

arrangements  of  the  Greeks  of  which  we  have  no  intimation 
anywhere,"  including  Alexandria  (69).  In  another  chapter, 
Rohde  comments  (354-356)  with  documentary  proof,  on  the 
4 'extraordinary  tenacity,"  with  which  the  Greeks  down  to  the 
latest  periods  of  their  literature,  clung  to  their  custom  of  re- 
garding and  treating  women  as  inferiors  and  servants — a 
custom  which  precluded  the  possibility  of  true  chivalry  and 
adoration.  That  sympathy  also — and  consequently  true,  al- 
truistic affection — continued  to  be  wanting  in  their  emotional 
life  is  indicated  by  the  fact,  also  pointed  out  by  Kohde,  that 
"  the  most  palpable  mark  of  a  higher  respect/'  an  education, 
was  withheld  from  the  women  to  the  end  of  the  Hellenic 
period.1 

1 1  have  given  Professor  Rohde's  testimony  on  this  point  not  only  because  he 
is  a  famous  specialist  in  the  literature  of  this  period,  but  because  his  peculiar 
bias  makes  his  negative  attitude  in  regard  to  the  question  of  Alexandrian  gal- 
lantry the  more  convincing.  A  reader  of  his  book  would  naturally  expect  him 
to  take  the  opposite  view,  since  he  himself  fancied  he  had  discovered  traces  of 
gallantry  in  an  author  who  preceded  the  Alexandrians.  The  A  nclromeda  of  Eurip- 
ides, he  declares  (23),  "  became  in  his  hands  one  of  the  most  brilliant  examples 
of  chivalrous  love."  This,  however,  is  a  pure  assVonption  on  his  part,  not  war- 
ranted by  the  few  fragments  of  this  play  that  have  been  preserved.  Benecke 
has  devoted  a  special  u  Excursus  "  to  this  play  (203-205),  in  which  he  justly  re- 
marks that  readers  of  Greek  literature  "  need  hardly  be  reminded  of  how  utterly 
foreign  to  the  Greek  of  Euripides's  day  is  the  conception  of  the  ' galante  Ritter* 
setting  out  in  search  of  ladies  that  want  rescuing."  He  might  have  brought  out 
the  humor  of  the  matter  by  quoting  the  characteristically  Greek  version  of  the 
Perseus  story  given  by  Apollodorus,  who  relates  dryly  (II.,  chap.  4)  that  Ce- 
pheus,  in  obedience  to  an  oracle,  bound  his  daughter  to  a  rock  to  be  devoured 
by  a  sea  monster.  ' '  Perseus  saw  her,  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  promised  Ce- 
pheus  to  slaughter  the  monster  if  he  would  promise  to  give  him,  the  rescued 
daughter  to  marry.  The  contract  was  made  and  Perseus  undertook  the  advent- 
ure, killed  the  monster  and  rescued  Andromeda."  Nothing  could  more  strikingly 
reveal  the  difference  between  Hellenic  and  modern  ideas  regarding  lovers  than 
the  fact  that  to  the  Greek  mind  there  was  nothing  disgraceful  in  this  selfish, 
ungallant  bargain  made  by  Perseus  as  a  condition  of  his  rescuing  the  poor  girl 
from  a  horrible  death.  A  mediaeval  knight,  or  a  modern  gentleman,  not  to 
speak  of  a  modern  lover,  would  have  saved  her  at  the  risk  of  his  own  life,  reward 
or  no  reward.  The  difference  is  further  emphasized  by  the  attitude  of  the  girl, 
who  exclaims  to  her  deliverer,  "Take  me,  O  stranger,  for  thine  handmaiden,  or 
wife,  or  slave."  Professor  Murray,  who  cites  this  line  in  his  History  of  Greek 
Literature,  remarks  with  comic  na'ivete' :  "The  love-note  in  this  pure  and 
happy  sense  Euripides  had  never  struck  before."  But  what  is  there  so  re- 


to  enforce  that  principle  of  conduct  ?  And  does  not  that  very  exclamation  of 
Andromeda  show  how  utterly  antipodal  the  situation  and  the  whole  drama  of 
Euripides  were  to  modern  ideas  of  chivalrous  love  ? 

Having  just  mentioned  Benecke,  I  may  as  well  add  here  that  his  own  theory 
regarding  the  first  appearance  of  the  romantic  elements  in  Greek  love-poetry 
rests  on  an  equally  flimsy  basis.  He  held  that  AntimacKus,  who  nourished  be- 
fore Euripides  and  Plato  had  passed  away,  was  the  first  poet  who  applied  to 
women  the  idea  of  a  pure,  chivalrous  love,  which  up  to  his  time  had  been  attrib- 


792  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND    POEMS 


THE    NEW   COMEDY 

Another  current  error  regarding  the  Alexandrian  period 
both  in  Egypt  and  in  Greece  (Menander  and  the  New  Com- 
edy) is  that  a  regard  for  purity  enters  as  a  new  element  into 
its  literature.  It  does,  in  some  instances,  less,  however,  as  a 
virtue  than  as  a  bonne  bouclie  for  epicures,1  as  is  made  most 
patent  in  that  offshoot  of  the  Alexandrian  manner,  the  abom- 
inably raffine  story  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe.  There  may  also  be 
traces  of  that  "longing  for  an  ennobling  of  the  passion  of 
love  "  of  which  Rohde  speaks  (though  I  have  not  found  any 
in  my  own  reading,  and  the  professor,  contrary  to  his  favor- 
ite usage,  gives  no  references)  ;  but  apart  from  that,  the 
later  Greek  literature  differs  from  the  older  not  in  being 
purer,  but  by  its  coarse  and  shameless  eroticism,  both  un- 
natural and  natural.  The  old  epics  and  tragedies  are  models 
of  purity  in  comparison,  though  Euripides  set  a  bad  example 
in  his  Hippolytus,  and.  still  more  his  ^tEolus,  the  coarse  in- 
cestuous passion  of  which  was  particularly  admired  and  imi- 
tated by  the  later  writers.2  Aristophanes  is  proverbial  for 
his  unspeakable  license  and  obscenity.  Concerning  the  plays 
of  Menander  (more  than  a  hundred,  of  which  only  fragments 
have  come  down  to  us  and  Latin  versions  of  several  by  Ter- 
ence and  Plautus),  Plutarch  tells  us,  indeed,  that  they  were 
all  tied  together  by  one  bond — love  ;  but  it  was  love  in  the 
only  sense  known  to  the  Greeks,  and  always  involving  a  he- 
laira  or  at  most  a  i/^uSo/cop??,  or  demie-vierge,  since  respectable 
girls  could  not  be  involved  in  realistic  Greek  love-affairs. 

uteri  only  to  the  romantic  friendships  with  boys.  The  "romantic  idea,"  ac- 
cording to  Benecke,  is  ll  the  idea  that  a  woman  is  a  worthy  object  for  a  man's 
love  and  that  such  love  may  well  be  the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  aim  of  a  man's 
life."  But  that  Antimachus  knew  anything  of  such  love  is  a  pure  figment  of 
Benecke's  imagination.  The  works  of  Antimachus  are  lost,  and  all  that  we 
know  about  them  or  him  is  that  he  lamented  the  loss  of  his  wife — a  feeling  very 
much  older  than  the  poet  of  Colophon— and  consoled  himself  by  writing  an 
elegy  named  Aw'S^in  which  he  brought  together  from  mythical  and  traditional 
sources  a  number  of  sad  tales.  Conjugal  grief  does  not  take  us  very  far  toward 
so  complicated  an  altruistic  state  of  mind  as  I  have  shown  romantic  love  to  be. 

1  Theocritus  makes  this  point  clear  in  line  5  of  Idyl  12  : 

6(T<rot>  napQeviicri  jr/xxfcepei  Tpiya/uoio  yvraiKOS. 

2  See  Helbig,  246,  and  RohcH  36,  for  details.     Helbig  remarks  that  the  Alex- 
andrians, following  the  procedure  of  Euripides,  chose  by  preference  incestuous 
passions,  "and  it  appears  that  such  passions  were  not  rare  in  actual  life  too  in 
those  times." 


THEOCRITUS   AND    CALLIMACHUS  793 

Professor  Gercke  has  well  remarked  (141)  that  the  charm  of 
elegance  with  which  Menander  covers  up  his  moral  rotten- 
ness, and  which  made  him  the  favorite  of  the  jeunesse  doree 
of  his  time,  exerted  a  bad  influence  on  the  stage  through 
many  centuries.  There  are  a  few  quasi-altruistic  expressions 
in  the  plays  of  Terence  and  Plautus,  but  they  are  not  sup- 
ported by  actions  and  do  not  reach  beyond  the  sphere  of  sen- 
timentality into  that  of  sentiment.  Here  again  I  may  ad- 
duce Rohde  as  an  unbiassed  witness.  While  declaring  that 
there  is  "  a  longing  for  the  ennobling  of  the  passion  in  actual 
life  "  he  admits  that  "  really  sentimental  effusions  of  love  are 
strikingly  rare  in  Plautus  and  Terence.1  One  might  think 
the  authors  of  the  Latin  versions  had  omitted  the  senti- 
mental passages,  were  it  not  that  in  the  remnants  of  the 
Newer  Comedy  of  the  Attic  writers  themselves  there  are, 
apart  from  general  references  to  Eros,  no  traces  whatever  of 
sentimental  allusions."2 

THEOCRITUS   AND    CALLIMACHUS 

Let  us  now  return  from  Athens  and  Rome  to  Alexandria, 
to  see  whether  we  can  find  a  purer  and  more  genuinely  ro- 
mantic atmosphere  in  the  works  of  her  leading  poets.  Of 

1  He  refers  as  instances  to  Plaut.,  Asin.,  III. ,  3,  particularly  v.  608  ff.  and  615  ; 
adding  that  "  a  very  sentimental  character  is  Charinus  in  the  Mercator  ;  and 
he  also  points  to  Ter.,  Etin.,  193  ff. 

a  What  makes  this  evidence  the  more  conclusive  is  that  Rohde's  use  of  the 
word  "  sentimental "  refers,  according  to  his  own  definition,  to  egoistic  senti- 
mentality, not  to  altruistic  sentiment.  Of  sentimentality — altiloquent,  fabri- 
cated feeling  and  cajolery — there  is  enough  in  Greek  and  Latin  literature,  doubt- 
less as  a  reflection  of  life.  But  when,  in  the  third  act  of  the  Asinaria,  the 
lover  says  to  his  girl,  vt  If  I  were  to  hear  that  you  were  in  want  of  life,  at  once 
would  I  present  you  my  own  life  and  from  my  own  would  add  to  yours,'1  we 
promptly  ask,  li  Would  he  have  done  it  ?  "  And  the  answer,  from  all  we  know 
of  these  men  and  their  attitude  toward  women,  would  have  been  the  same  as 
that  of  the  maiden  to  the  enamoured  Daphnis,  in  the  twenty-seventh  Idyl  of 
Theocritus:  '''Now  you  promise  me  everything,  but  afterward  you  will  not 
give  me  a  pinch  of  salt."  As  for  the  purity  of  the  characters  in  the  play,  its 
quality  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the  girl  is  not  only  a  hetaira,  but  the 
daughter  of  a  procuress.  From  the  point  of  view  of  purity  the  Captivi  is  par- 
ticularly instructive.  Riley  calls  it  u  the  most  pure  and  innocent  of  all  the 
plays  of  Plautus  ;  "  and  when  we  examine  why  this  is  so  we  find  that  it  is  be- 
cause there  is  no  woman  in  it  !  In  the  epilogue  Plautus  himself — who  made 
his  living  by  translating  Athenian  comedies  into  Latin — makes  the  significant 
confession  that  there  were  but  few  Greek  plays  from  which  he  might  have  cop- 
ied so  chaste  a  plot,  in  which  "  there  is  no  wenching,  no  intriguing,  no  exposure 
of  a  child  "  to  be  fonnd  by  a  procuress  and  brought  up  as  a  hetaira — which  are 
the  staple  features  of  these  later  Greek  play.s. 


794          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

these  the  first  in  time  and  fame  is  Theocritus.  He,  like 
Sappho,  has  been  lauded  as  a  poet  of  love ;  and  he  does  re- 
semble Sappho  in  two  respects.  Like  her,  he  often  glorifies 
unnatural  passion  in  a  way  which,  as  in  the  twelfth  and 
twenty-third  Idyls,  for  example,  tempts  every  normal  person 
who  can  read  the  original  to  throw  the  whole  book  away  in 
disgust.  Like  Sappho  and  the  Hindoos  (and  some  modern 
Critics)  he  also  seems  to  imagine  that  the  chief  symptoms 
of  love  are  emaciation,  perspiration,  and  paralysis,  as  we  see 
in  the  absurdly  overrated  second  Idyl,  of  which  I  have  al- 
ready spoken  (116).  Lines  87-88  of  Idyl  I.,  lines  139-142 
of  Idyl  II.,  and  the  whole  of  Idyl  XXVII. ,  practically  sum 
up  the  conception  of  love  prevailing  in  the  bucolic  school  of 
Theocritus,  Bion,  and  Moschus,  except  that  Theocritus  has 
an  idea  of  the  value  of  coyness  and  jealousy  as  stimulants 
of  passion,  as  Idyl  VI.  shows.  Crude  coyness  and  rude  jeal- 
ousy no  doubt  were  known  also  to  the  rustic  folk  he  sings 
about ;  but  when  he  makes  that  ugly,  clumsy,  one-eyed  mon- 
ster, the  Cyclops  Polyphemus,  fall  in  love  with  the  sea-nymph 
Galatea  (Idyl  XL)  and  lament  that  he  was  not  born  with  fins 
that  he  might  dive  and  kiss  her  hand  if  his  lips  she  refused, 
he  applies  Alexandrian  pseudo-gallantry  to  pastoral  condi- 
tions where  they  are  ludicrously  out  of  place.  The  kind  of 
"  gallantry  "  really  to  be  expected  tinder  these  conditions  is 
realistically  indicated  in  Idyl  XIV.,  where  ./Eschines,  after 
declaring  that  he  shall  go  mad  some  day  because  the  beauti- 
ful Cyniska  flouted  him,  tells  his  friend  how,  in  a  fit  of  jeal- 
ousy, he  had  struck  the  girl  on  the  cheek  twice  with  clenched 
fist,  while  she  was  sitting  at  his  own  table.  Thereupon  she 
left  him,  and  now  he  laments  :  "  If  I  could  only  find  a  cure 
for  my  love  !  " 

Another  quaintly  realistic  touch  occurs  in  the  line  (Idyl 
II.)  in  which  Battis  declares  that  Amaryllis,  when  she  died, 
was  as  dear  to  him  as  his  goats.  In  this  line,  no  doubt, 
we  have  the  supreme  ideal  of  Sicilian  pastoral  love  ;  nor  is 
there  a  line  which  indicates  that  Theocritus  himself  knew 
any  higher  phases  of  love  than  those  which  he  embodies 
in  his  shepherds.  In  a  writer  who  has  so  many  poetic 


THEOCRITUS   AND   CALLIMACHUS  795 

charms  l  this  may  seem  strange,  but  it  simply  bears  out  my 
theory  that  romantic  love  is  one  of  the  latest  products  of  civ- 
ilization— as  late  as  the  love  of  romantic  scenery,  which  we  do 
not  find  in  Theocritus,  though  he  writes  charmingly  of  other 
kinds  of  scenery — of  cool  fountains,  shady  groves,  pastures 
with  cattle,  apple  trees,  and  other  things  that  please  the 
senses  of  man — as  women  do  while  they  are  young  and  pretty. 

Callimachus,  the  younger  contemporary  of  Theocritus,  is 
another  Alexandrian  whose  importance  in  the  history  of  love 
has  been  exaggerated.  His  fame  rests  chiefly  on  the  story  of 
Acontius  and  Cydippe  which  occurred  in  the  collection  of 
legends  and  tales  he  had  brought  together  in  his  Ama.  His 
own  version  is  now  lost,  like  most  of  his  other  works  ; 
and  such  fragments  of  the  story  as  remain  would  not  suffice 
for  the  purpose  of  reconstruction  were  we  not  aided  by  the 
two  epistles  which  the  lovers  exchange  with  each  other  in  the 
Her  aides  of  Ovid,  and  more  still  by  the  prose  version  of 
Aristaenetus,  which  appears  to  be  quite  literal,  judging  by 
the  correspondence  of  the  text  with  some  of  the  extant  frag- 
ments of  the  original.2  The  story  can  be  related  in  a  few 
lines.  Acontius  and  Cydippe  are  both  very  beautiful  and 
have  both  been  coy  to  others  of  the  opposite  sex.  As  a  pun- 
ishment they  are  made  to  fall  in  love  with  each  other  at  first 
sight  in  the  Temple  of  Diana.  It  is  a  law  of  this  temple  that 
any  vow  made  in  it  must  be  kept.  To  secure  the  girl,  Acon- 
tius therefore  takes  an  apple,  writes  on  it  a  vow  that  she  will 
be  his  bride  and  throws  it  at  her  feet.  She  picks  it  up,  reads 
the  vow  aloud  and  thus  pledges  herself.  Her  parents,  some 
time  after,  want  to  marry  her  to  another  man  ;  three  times  tht 
wedding  arrangements  are  made,  but  each  time  she  falls  ilL 
Finally  the  oracle  at  Delphi  is  consulted,  which  declarer 
that  the  girl's  illness  is  due  to  her  not  keeping  her  vow  f 
whereupon  explanations  follow  and  the  lovers  are  united.  \ 

In  the  literary  history  of  love  this  story  may  be  allowed  ;j 

1  Those  who  cannot  read  Greek  will  derive  much  pleasure  from  the  admirable 
prose  version  of  Andrew  Lang,  which  in  charm  of  style  sometimes  excels  th< 
original,  while  it  veils  those  features  that  too  much  offend  modern  taste. 

2  Couat,  142.     There  are  reasons  to  believe  that  the  epistles  referred  to  an 
not  by  Ovid.     Aristaenetus  lived  about  the  fifth  century.     It  is  odd  that  the 
poem  of  Callimachus  should  have  been  lost  after  surviving  eight  centuries. 


796          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

conspicuous  place  for  the  reason  that,  as  Mahaffy  remarks 
(G.  L.  &  T.,  236),  it  is  the  first  literary  original  of  that 
sort  of  tale  which  makes  falling  in  love  and  happy  marriage 
the  beginning  and  the  end,  while  the  obstacles  to  this  union 
form  the  details  of  the  plot.  Moreover,  as  Couat  points  out 
(145),  the  later  Greek  romances  are  mere  imitations  of  this 
Alexandrian  elegy — Hero  and  Leander,  Leucippe  and  Clito- 
phon,  and  other  stories  all  recall  it.  But  from  my  point  of 
view — the  evolutionary  and  psychological — I  cannot  see  that 
the  story  told  by  Callimachus  marks  any  advance.  The  lovers 
see  each  other  only  a  moment  in  the  temple  ;  they  do  not 
meet  afterward,  there  is  no  real  courtship,  they  have  no 
chance  to  get  acquainted  with  each  others  mind  and  char- 
acter, and  there  is  no  indication  whatever  of  supersensual, 
altruistic  affection.  Nor  was  Callimachus  the  man  from 
whom  one  would  have  expected  a  new  gospel  of  love.  He 
was  a  dry  old  librarian,  without  originality,  a  compiler  of 
catalogues  and  legends,  etc. — eight  hundred  works  all  told— 
in  which  even  the  stories  were  marred  by  details  of  pedantic 
erudition.  Moreover,  there  is  ample  evidence  in  the  extant 
epigrams  that  he  did  not  differ  from  his  contemporaries  and 
predecessors  in  the  theory  and  practice  of  love.  Instead  of 
having  the  modern  feeling  of  abhorrence  toward  any  sugges- 
tion of  TratSepaoTia,  he  glorified  it  in  the  usual  Greek  style. 
The  fame  he  enjoyed  as  an  erotic  poet  among  the  coarse  and 
unprincipled  Roman  bards  does  not  redound  to  his  credit, 
and  he  himself  tells  us  unmistakably  what  he  means  by  love 
when  he  calls  it  a  ^tXoTraiSa  vovov  and  declares  that  fasting  is  a 
sure  remedy  for  it  (Epigr.,  47). 

MEDEA   AND   JASON 

j  Another  writer  of  this  period  who  has  been  unduly  ex- 
tolled for  his  insight  into  the  mysteries  of  love,  is  Apollonius 
Rhodius,  concerning  whom  Professor  Murray  goes  so  far  as 
to  say  (382),  that  "  for  romantic  love  on  the  higher  side  he  is 
without  a  peer  even  in  the  age  of  Theocritus. "(I)  He  owes 
this  fame  to  the  story  of  Medea  and  Jason,  introduced  in  the 


MEDEA   AND   JASON  797 


third  book  of  his  version  of  the  Argonautic  expedition  (275 
seq.).  It  begins  in  the  old-fashioned  way  with  Cupid  shooting 
his  arrow  at  Medea's  heart,  in  which  forthwith  the  destruct- 
tive  passion  glows.  Blushes  and  pallor  alternate  in  her  face, 
and  her  breast  heaves  fast  and  deep  as  she  incessantly  stares 
at  Jason  with  flaming  eyes.  She  remembers  afterwards  every 
detail  about  his  looks  and  dress,  and  how  he  sat  and  walked. 
Unlike  all  other  men  he  seemed  to  her.  Tears  run  down 
her  cheeks  at  the  thought  that  he  might  succumb  in  his  com- 
bat with  the  two  terrible  bulls  he  will  have  to  tame  before 
he  can  recover  the  Golden  Fleece.  Even  in  her  dreams  she 
suffers  tortures,  if  she  is  able  to  sleep  at  all.  She  is  dis- 
tracted by  conflicting  desires.  Should  she  give  him  the 
magic  salve  which  would  protect  his  body  from  harm,  or  let 
him  die,  and  die  with  him  ?  Should  she  give  up  her  home, 
her  family,  her  honor,  for  his  sake  and  become  the  topic  of 
scandalous  gossip  ?  or  should  she  end  it  all  by  committing 
suicide  ?  She  is  on  the  point  of  doing  so  when  the  thought 
of  all  the  joys  of  life  makes  her  hesitate  and  change  her 
mind.  She  resolves  to  see  Jason  alone  and  give  him  the  oint- 
ment. A  secret  meeting  is  arranged  in  the  temple  of  Hecate. 
She  gets  there  first,  and  while  waiting  every  sound  of  foot- 
steps makes  her  bosom  heave.  At  last  he  comes  and  at  sight 
of  him  her  cheek  flames  rexl,  her  eyes  grow  dim,  conscious- 
ness seems  to  leave  her,  and  she  is  fixed  to  the  ground  unable 
to  move  forward  or  backward.  After  Jason  has  spoken  to 
her,  assuring  her  that  the  gods  themselves  would  reward  her 
for  saving  the  lives  of  so  many  brave  men,  she  takes  the  salve 
from  her  bosom,  and  she  would  have  plucked  her  heart  from 
it  to  give  him  had  he  asked  for  it.  The  eyes  of  both  are 
modestly  turned  to  the  ground,  but  when  they  meet  longing 
speaks  from  them.  Then,  after  explaining  to  him  the  use  of 
the  salve,  she  seizes  his  hand  and  begs  him  after  he  shall 
have  reached  his  home  again,  to  remember  her,  as  she  will 
bear  him  in  mind,  even  against  her  parents'  wishes.  Should 
he  forget  her,  she  hopes  messengers  will  bring  news  of  him, 
or  that  she  herself  may  be  able  to  cross  the  seas  and  appear 
an  unexpected  guest  to  remind  him  how  she  had  saved  him. 


798          GREEK   LOVE-STOR7.  S  AND   POEMS 

Such  was  the  love  of  Medea,  which  historians  have  pro- 
claimed such  a  new  thing  in  literature — "  romantic  love  on 
the  higher  side."  For  my  part  I  cannot  see  in  this  description 
— in  which  no  essential  trait  is  omitted — anything  different 
from  what  we  have  found  in  Homer,  in  Sappho,  and  in  Eu- 
ripides. The  unwomanly  lack  of  coyness  which  Medea  dis- 
plays when  she  practically  proposes  to  Jason,  expecting  him 
to  marry  her  out  of  gratitude,  is  copied  after  the  Nausicaa  of 
the  Odyssey.  The  naming  cheeks,  dim  eyes,  loss  of  conscious- 
ness, and  paralysis  are  copied  from  Sappho  ;  while  the  Hip- 
polytus  of  Euripides  furnished  the  model  for  the  dwelling  on 
the  subjective  symptoms  of  the  "  pernicious  passion  of  love/' 
The  stale  trick  too,  of  making  this  love  originate  in  a  wound 
inflicted  by  Cupid's  arrows  is  everlastingly  Greek  ;  and  so  is 
the  device  of  representing  the  woman  alone  as  being  consumed 
by  the  flames  of  love.  For  Jason  is  about  as  unlike  a  modern 
lover  as  a  caricaturist  could  make  him.  His  one  idea  is  to 
save  his  life  and  get  the  Fleece.  "  Necessity  compels  me  to 
clasp  your  knees  and  ask  your  aid,"  he  exclaims  when  he 
meets  her  ;  and  when  she  gives  him  that  broad  hint  "  do  not 
forget  me  ;  I  shall  never  forget  you,"  his  reply  is  a  long  story 
about  his  home.  Not  till  after  she  has  threatened  to  visit 
him  does  he  declare  "  But  should  you  come  to  my  home,  you 
would  be  honored  by  all  ...  in  that  case  I  hope  you 
may  grace  my  bridal  couch."  And  again  in  the  fourth  book 
he  relates  that  he  is  taking  Medea  home  to  be  his  wife  "in  ac- 
cordance with  her  wishes  !  "  Without  persiflage,  his  attitude 
may  be  summed  up  in  these  words  :  "  I  come  to  you  because  I 
am  in  danger  of  my  precious  life.  Help  me  to  get  back  the 
Golden  Fleece  and  I  promise  you  that,  on  condition  that  I  get 
home  safe  and  sound,  I  will  condescend  to  marry  you."  Is 
this,  perhaps,  the  "romantic  love  on  the  higher  side  "  which 
Professor  Murray  found  in  this  story  ?  But  there  is  more  to 
come. 

Of  the  symptoms  of  love  in  Medea's  heart  described  in  the 
foregoing  paragraph  not  one  rises  above  that  egotistic  gloat- 
ing over  the  pangs  and  joys  of  sensual  infatuation  which  con- 
stitute one  phase  of  sentimentality  ;  while  the  further  prog- 


POETS   AND    HETAIRAI  799 

ress  of  the  story  shows  that  Medea  had  no  idea  whatever  of 
sacrificing  herself  for  Jason,  but  that  the  one  motive  of  her 
actions  was  the  eager  desire  to  possess  him.  When  the 
fugitives  are  being  pursued  closely,  and  the  chivalrous  Argo- 
nauts, afraid  to  battle  with  a  superior  number,  propose  to  re- 
tain the  Golden  Fleece,  but  to  give  up  Medea  and  let  some 
other  king  decide  whether  she  is  to  be  returned  to  her  par- 
ents, it  never  occurs  to  her  that  she  might  save  her  beloved 
by  going  back  home.  She  wants  to  have  him  at  any  cost,  or 
to  perish  with  him  ;  so  she  reproaches  him  bitterly  for  his  in- 
gratitude, and  meditates  the  plan  of  setting  fire  to  the  ships 
and  burning  him  up  with  all  the  crew,  as  well  as  herself.  He 
tries  to  pacify  her  by  protesting  that  he  had  not  quite  liked 
the  plan  proposed  himself,  but  had  indorsed  it  only  to  gain 
time  ;  whereupon  she  suggests  a  way  out  of  the  dilemma 
pleasanter  to  herself,  by  advising  the  Argonauts  to  inveigle 
her  brother,  who  leads  tire  pursuers,  into  their  power  and  assas- 
sinate him  ;  which  they  promptly  proceed  to  do,  while  she 
stands  by  with  averted  eyes.  It  is  with  unconscious  sarcasm 
that  Apollonius  exclaims  on  the  same  page  where  all  these 
details  of  "  romantic  love  on  the  higher  side  "  are  being  un- 
folded :  "  Accursed. Eros,  the  world's  most  direful  plague." 

POETS    AND    HETAIRAI. 

The  one  commendable  feature  which  the  stories  of  Acon- 
tius  and  Cydippe  and  of  Medea  and  Jason  have  in  common 
is  that  the  heroine  in  each  case  is  a  respectable  and  pure 
maiden  (see  Argon.,  IV.,  1018-1025).  But,  although  the 
later  romance  writers  followed  this  example,  it  would  be  a 
great  mistake  to  suppose,  with  Mahaffy  (272),  that  this  touch 
of  virgin  purity  was  felt  by  the  Alexandrians  to  be  "  the 
necessary  starting-point  of  the  love-romance  in  a  refined  so- 
ciety/7 Alexandrian  society  was  anything  but  refined  in 
matters  of  love,  and  the  trait  referred  to  stands  out  by  reason 
of  its  novelty  and  isolation  in  a  literature  devoted  chiefly  to 
the  hetairai.  We  see  this  especially  also  in  the  epigrams  of 
the  period.  It  is  astonishing,  writes  Couat  (173),  how  many 


800          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

of  these  are  erotic  ;  and  "  almost  all/'  he  adds,  "  are  ad- 
dressed to  courtesans  or  young  boys."  "  Dans  toutes  Tauteur 
ne  chante  que  la  beaute  plastique  et  les  plaisirs  faciles  ;  leur 
Cypris  est  la  Cypris  Trai/Srj/xos,  celle  qui  se  vend  a  tout  le 
m  onde."  In  these  verses  of  Callirnachus,  Asclepiades,  Posei- 
dippus  and  others,  he  finds  sentimentality  but  no  sentiment ; 
and  on  page  62  he  sums  up  Alexandria  with  French  patness 
as  a  place  "  ou  Ton  faisait  assidument  des  vers  sur  1'amour 
sans  etre  amoureux  " — "  where  they  were  ever  writing  love- 
poems  without  ever  being  in  love."  But  what  repels  modern 
taste  still  more  than  this  artificiality  and  lack  of  inspiration 
is  the  effeminate  degradation  of  the  masculine  type  most  ad- 
mired. Helbig,  who,  in  his  book  on  Campanische  Wandma- 
lerei,  enforces  the  testimony  of  literature  with  the  inferences 
that  can  be  drawn  from  mural  paintings  and  vases,  remarks 
(258)  that  the  favorite  poetic  ideals  of  the  time  are  tender 
youths  with  milk-white  complexion,  rosy  cheeks  and  long, 
soft  tresses.  Thus  is  Apollo  represented  by  Callimachus,  thus 
even  Achilles  by  the  bucolic  poets.  In  later  representations 
indicating  Alexandrian  influences  we  actually  see  Polyphe- 
mus no  longer  as  a  rude  giant,  but  as  a  handsome  man,  or  even 
as  a  beardless  youth.1 

That  the  Alexandrian  period,  far  from  marking  the  ad- 
vent of  purity  and  refinement  in  literature  and  life,  really 
represents  the  climax  of  degradation,  is  made  most  obvious 
when  we  regard  the  role  which  the  hetairai  played  in  social 
life.  In  Alexandria  and  at  Athens  they  were  the  centre  of 
attraction  at  all  the  entertainments  of  the  young  men,  and 
to  some  of  them  great  honors  were  paid.  In  the  time  of  Polyb- 
ius  the  most  beautiful  houses  in  Alexandria  were  named 
after  flute  girls  ;  portrait  statues  of  such  were  placed  in  tem- 
ples and  other  public  places,  by  the  side  of  those  of  generals 
and  statesmen,  and  there  were  few  prominent  men  whose 
names  were  not  associated  with  these  creatures. 

The  opinion  has  been  promulgated  countless  times  that 
these  eratpat  were  a  mentally  superior  class  of  women,  and  on 
the  strength  of  this  information  I  assumed,  in  Romantic 

1  See  also  Helbig' s  Chap.  XXII.  on  the  increasing  lubricity  of  Greek  art 


POETS    AND    HETAIRAI  801 

Love  and  Personal  Beauty  (79),  that,  notwithstanding  their 
frailty,  they  may  have  been  able,  in  some  cases,  to  inspire  a 
more  refined,  spiritual  sort  of  love  than  the  uneducated  do- 
mestic women.  A  study  of  the  original  sources  has  now  con- 
vinced me  that  this  was  a  mistake.  Aspasia  no  doubt  was 
a  remarkable  woman,  but  she  stands  entirely  by  herself. 
Theodota  is  visited  once  by  Socrates,  but  he  excuses  himself 
from  calling  again,  and  as  for  Diotima,  she  is  a  seeress  rather 
than  a  hetaira.  Athenseus  informs  us  that  some  of  these 
women  "had  a  great  opinion  of  themselves,  paying  attention 
to  education  and  spending  a  part  of  their  time  on  literature  ; 
so  that  they  were  very  ready  with  their  rejoinders  and 
replies ; "  but  the  specimens  he  gives  of  these  rejoinders 
and  replies  consist  chiefly  of  obscene  jokes,  cheap  puns  on 
names  or  pointless  witticisms.  Here  are  two  specimens  of 
the  better  kind,  relating  to  Gnathaena,  who  was  famed  for 
her  repartee  :  "  Once,  when  a  man  came  to  see  her  and  saw 
some  eggs  on  a  dish,  and  said,  '  Are  these  raw  Gnathaena,  or 
boiled?'  she  replied,  '  They  are  made  of  brass,  my  boy." 
"  On  one  occasion,  when  some  poor  lovers  of  the  daughter  of 
Gnathaena  came  to  feast  at  her  house,  and  threatened  to 
throw  it  down,  saying  that  they  had  brought  spades  and  mat- 
tocks on  purpose  ;  'But/  said  Gnathaena,  '  if  you  had  these 
implements,  you  should  have  pawned  them  and  brought 
some  money  with  you/ '  The  pictures  of  the  utter  degrada- 
tion of  the  most  famous  of  the  hetairai  —  Leontium,  Lais, 
Phryne,  and  others,  drawn  by  Athenaeus,  need  not  be  trans- 
xerred  to  these  pages.  Combined  with  the  revelations  made 
in  Lucian's  EraiptKol  SiaAoyoi,  they  demonstrate  absolutely 
that  these  degraded,  mercenary,  mawkish  creatures  could 
not  have  inspired  romantic  sentiment  in  the  hearts  of  the 
men,  even  if  the  latter  had  been  capable  of  it. 

It  is  to  such  vulgar  persons  that  the  poets  of  classical 
Greece  and  Alexandria  addressed  their  verses.  And  herein 
they  were  followed  by  those  of  the  Latins  who  may  be  re- 
garded as  imitators  of  the  Alexandrians — Catullus,  Tibullus, 
Propertius  and  Ovid,  the  principal  erotic  poets  of  Rome. 
They  wrote  all  their  love-poems  to,  for,  or  about,  a  class  of 


802  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND    POEMS 

women  corresponding  to  the  Greek  hetairai.  Of  Ovid  I  have 
already  spoken  (189),  and  what  I  said  of  him  practically  ap- 
plies to  the  others.  Propertius  not  only  writes  with  the 
hetairai  in  his  mind,  but,  like  his  Alexandrian  models,  he 
appears  as  one  who  is  forever  writing  love-poems  without  ever 
being  really  in  love.  With  Catullus  the  sensual  passion  at 
least  is  sincere.  Yet  even  Professor  Sellar,  who  declares  that 
he  is,  "  with  the  exception  perhaps  of  Sappho,  the  greatest 
and  truest  of  all  the  ancient  poets  of  love,"  is  obliged  to  ad- 
mit that  he  "  has  not  the  romance  and  purity  of  modern  sen- 
timent" (349,  22).  Like  the  Greeks,  he  had  a  vague  idea 
that  there  is  something  higher  than  sensual  passion,  but,  like 
a  Greek,  in  expressing  it,  he  ignores  women  as  a  matter  of 
course.  "  There  was  a  time,"  he  writes  to  his  profligate 
Lesbia,  "  when  I  loved  you  not  as  a  man  loves  his  mistress, 
but  as  a  father  loves  his  son  or  his  son-in-law"! 

Dicebas  quondam  solum  te  nosse  Catullum, 
Lesbia,  nee  prae  me  velle  tenere  lovem. 
Dilexi  turn  te  non  ut  volgus  aniicam, 
Sed  pater  ut  gnatos  diligit  et  generos. 

In  Tibullus  there  is  a  note  of  tenderness  which,  however, 
is  a  mark  of  effeminacy  rather  than  of  an  improved  manli- 
ness. -  His  passion  is  fickle,  his  adoration  little  more  than 
adulation,  and  the  expressions  of  unselfish  devotion  here  and 
there  do  not  mean  more  than  the  altiloquent  words  of 
Achilles  about  Briseis  or  of  Admetus  about  Alcestis,  for  they 
are  not  backed  up  by  altruistic  actions.  In  a  word,  his  poems 
belong  to  the  region  of  sentimentality,  not  sentiment.  Mor-1 
ally  he  is  as  rotten  as  any  of  his  colleagues.  He  began  his 
poetic  career  with  a  glorification  of  TratSepuo-Tta,  and  continued 
it  as  an  admirer  of  the  most  abandoned  women.  A  French 
author  who  wrote  a  history  of  prostitution  in  three  volumes 
quite  properly  devoted  a  chapter  to  Tibullus  and  his  love- 
affairs.1 

1  Space  permitting,  it  would  be  interesting  to  examine  these  poets  in  detail,  as 
well  as  the  other  Romans — Virgil,  Horace,  Lucretius,  etc.,  who  came  less  under 
Greek  influence.  But  in  truth  such  examination  would  be  superfluous.  Any 
one  may  pursue  the  investigation  by  himself,  and  if  he  will  bear  in  mind  and 
apply  as  tests,  the  last  seven  of  my  ingredients  of  love — the  altruistic-supersen- 


SHORT   STORIES  803 


SHORT   STORIES 

A  big  volume  might  be  filled  with  the  short  love-stories  in 
prose  or  verse  scattered  through  a  thousand  years  of  Greek 
literature.  But,  although  some  of  them  are  quite  romantic, 
I  must  emphatically  reiterate  what  I  said  in  my  first  book 

(76) that  romantic  love  does  not  appear  in  the  writings  of 

any  Greek  author  and  that  the  passion  of  the  desperately 
enamoured  young  people  so  often  portrayed  sprang  entirely 
from  sensuality.  One  of  the  critics  referred  to  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  chapter  held  me  up  to  the  ridicule  of  the  British 
public  because  I  ignored  such  romantic  love-stories  as  Or- 
pheus and  Eurydice,  Alcyone  and  Ceyx,  Atalanta  and  Me- 
leager, Cephalus  and  Procris,  and  "a  dozen  others"  which 
"  any  school  girl "  could  tell  me.  To  begin  with  the  one 
last  named,  the  critic  asks  :  "  What  can  be  said  against  Ce- 
phalus and  Procris  ?  "  A  great  deal,  I  am  afraid.  As  told 
by  Antoninus  Liberalis  in  No.  41  of  his  Metamorphoses 
(/xera/xop^wo-cwi/  <rwayu>y7/)  it  is  one  of  the  most  abominable 
and  obscene  stories  ever  penned  even  by  a  Greek.  Some  of 
the  disgusting  details  are  omitted  in  the  versions  of  Ovid  and 
Hyginus,  but  in  the  least  offensive  version  that  can  be  made 
the  story  runs  thus  : 

Cephalus,  having  had  experience  of  woman's  unbridled  pas- 
sion, doubts  his  wife's  fidelity  and,  to  test  her,  disguises  him- 

snal  group — he  cannot  fail  to  become  convinced  that  there  are  no  instances  of 
what  I  have  described  as  romantic  love  in  Latin  literature  any  more  than  in 
Greek.  And  since  it  is  the  province  of  poets  to  idealize,  we  may  feel  doubly 
sure  that  the  emotions  which  they  did  not  even  imagine  cannot  have  existed 
in  the  actual  life  of  their  more  prosaic  contemporaries.  It  would,  indeed,  be 
strange  if  a  people  so  much  more  coarse-fibred  and  practical,  and  so  much  less 
emotional  and  esthetic,  than  the  Greeks,  should  have  excelled  them  in  the  ca- 
pacity for  what  is  one  of  the  most  esthetic  and  the  most  imaginative  of  all  sen- 
timents. 

Before  leaving  the  poets,  I  may  add  that  the  Greek  Anthology,  the  basis  of 
which  was  laid  by  Meleager,  a  contemporary  of  the  Roman  poets  just  referred 
to,  contains  a  collection  of  short  poems  by  many  Greek  writers,  in  which,  of 
course,  some  of  my  critics  have  discovered  romantic  love.  One  of  them  wrote 
that  "  the  poems  of  Meleager  alone  in  the  Greek  Anthology  would  suffice  to  re- 
fute the  notion  that  Greece  ignored  romantic  passion."  If  this  critic  will  take 
the  trouble  to  read  these  poems  of  Meleager  in  the  original  he  will  find  that  a 
disgustingly  large  number  relate  to  TraiSepaoria,  which  in  No.  III.  is  expressly 
declared  to  be  superior  to  the  lovo  for  women  ;  that  most  of  the  others  relate  to 
hetairai  ;  and  that  not  one  of  them — or  one  in  the  whole  Anthology — comes  up 
to  my  standard  of  romantic  love. 


804  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND    POEMS 

self  and  offers  her  a  bag  of  gold.  At  first  she  refuses,  but 
when  he  doubles  the  sum,  she  submits,  whereupon  he  throws 
away  his  disguise  and  confronts  her  with  her  guilt.  Covered 
with  shame,  she  flies.  Afterward  she  cuts  her  hair  like  a 
man's,  changes  her  clothes  so  as  to  be  unrecognizable,  and 
joins  him  in  the  chase.  Being  more  successful  than  he,  she 
promises  to  teach  him  on  a  certain  condition  ;  and  on  his 
assenting,  she  reveals  her  identity  and  'accuses  him  of  be- 
ing just  as  bad  as  she  was.  Another  version  reads  that  after 
their  reconciliation  she  suspected  his  fidelity  on  hearing  that 
he  used  to  ascend  a  hill  and  cry  out  "  Come,  Nephela,  come  " 
(N€</>eA//7  means  cloud).  So  she  went  and  concealed  herself  on 
the  hill  in  a  thicket,  where  her  husband  accidentally  killed 
her  with  his  javelin. 

Is  this  the  kind  of  Greek  "  love-stories  "  that  English  school 
girls  learn  by  the  dozen  ?  Coarse  as  it  is,  the  majority  of  these 
stories  are  no  better,  being  absolutely  unfit  for  literal  trans- 
lation, which  is  doubtless  the  reason  why  no  publisher  has 
ever  brought  out  a  collection  of  Greek  "  love-stories."  Of 
those  referred  to  above  none  is  so  objectionable  as  the  tale  of 
Cephalus  and  Procris,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  any  one  of 
them  in  any  way  related  to  what  we  call  romantic  love.  At- 
alanta  was  a  sweet  masculine  maiden  who  could  run  faster 
than  any  athlete.  Her  father  was  anxious  to  have  her  marry, 
and  she  finally  agreed  to  wed  any  man  who  could  reach  a 
certain  goal  before  her,  the  condition  being,  however,  that 
she  should  be  allowed  to  transfix  with  her  spear  every  suitor 
who  failed.  She  had  already  ornamented  the  place  of  con- 
test with  the  heads  of  many  courageous  young  men,  this 
tender-hearted,  romantic  maiden  had,  when  her  fun  was 
rudely  spoiled  by  Meleager,  who  threw  before  her  three  gol- 
den apples  which  she  stopped  to  pick  up,  thus  losing  the 
race  to  that  hero,  who,  no  doubt,  was  extremely  happy  with 
such  a  wife  ever  after.  Even  to  this  story  an  improper  sequel 
was  added. 

Alcyone  and  Ceyx  is  the  story  of  a  wife  who  committed 
suicide  on  discovering  the  body  of  her  husband  on  the  sea- 
beach  ;  and  the  story  of  Orpheus,  who  grieved  so  over  the 
death  of  his  wife  Eurydice  that  he  went  to  the  lower  world 
to  bring  her  up  again,  but  lost  her  again  because,  contrary  to 


SHORT   STORIES  805 

his  agreement  with  Pluto  and  Proserpina,  he  looked  back  to 
see  if  she  was  following,  is  known  to  everybody.  The  con- 
jugal attachment  and  grief  at  the  loss  of  a  spouse  which  these 
two  legends  tell  of,  are  things  the  existence  of  which  in 
Greece  no  one  has  ever  denied.  They  are  simple  phenomena 
quite  apart  from  the  complex  state  of  mind  we  call  romantic 
love,  and  are  shared  by  man  with  many  of  the  lower  animals. 
In  such  attachment  and  grief  there  is  no  evidence  of  altru- 
istic affection.  Orpheus  tried  to  bring  back  Eurydice  to 
please  himself,  not  her,  and  Alcyone's  suicide  was  of  no  pos- 
sible use  to  Ceyx.1 

The  story  of  Panthea  and  Abradates,  to  which  Professor 
Ebers  refers  so  triumphantly,  is  equally  inconclusive  as  to 
the  existence  of  altruistic  affection.  Abradates,  having  been 
urged  by  his  wife  Panthea  to  show  himself  worthy  of  the 
friendship  of  Cyrus  by  doing  valorous  deeds,  falls  in  a  battle, 
whereat  Panthea  is  so  grieved  at  the  result  of  her  advice  that 
she  commits  suicide.  From  the  modern  Christian  point  of 
view  this  was  not  a  rational  proof  of  affection,  but  a  foolish 
and  criminal  act.  But  it  harmonized  finely  with  the  Greek 
ideal  —  the  notion  that  patriotism  is  even  a  woman's  first  duty, 
and  her  life  not  worth  living  except  in  subservience  to  her 
husband.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe2  that  this  story 
was  a  pure  invention  of  Xenophon  and  deliberately  intended 
to  be  an  object  lesson  to  women  regarding  the  ideal  they 
ought  to  live  up  to.  The  whole  of  the  book  in  which  it  ap- 
pears —  Kvpov  TruiSeia  —  is  what  the  Germans  call  a  Tendenzro- 
'inan  —  a  historic  romance  with  a  moral,  illustrating  the  im- 
portance of  a  correct  education  and  glorifying  a  certain  form 
of  government. 

To  a  student  of  Greek  love  one  of  the  most  instructive 
documents  is  the  epom/ca  Tra^^ara  of  Parthenius,  who  was  a 


1  The  best-known  ancient  story  of  "love-suicide  "  is  that  of  Pyramus  and 
Thisbe.  Pyramus,  having  reason  to  think  that  Thisbe,  with  whom  he  had  ar- 
ranged a  secret  interview  at  the  tomb  of  Ninns,  has  been  devoured  by  a  lion, 
stabs  himself  in  despair,  and  Thisbe,  on  finding  his  body,  plunges  on  to  the  same 
sword,  still  warm  with  his  blood.  This  tale,  which  is  probably  of  Babylonian 
origin,  is  related  by  Ovid  (Jfetamorph.,  IV.,  55-166),  and  was  much  admired 
and  imitated  in  the  Middle  Ag"s.  Comment  on  it  would  be  superfluous  after 
what  I  have  written  on  pages  (MtfMH.0. 

a  See  Rohde,  130  ;  Christ,  349. 


806  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

contemporary  of  the  most  famous  Roman  poets  (first  century 
before  Christ),  and  the  teacher  of  Virgil.  It  is  a  collection 
of  thirty-six  short  love-stories  in  prose,  made  for  him  by  his 
friend  Cornelius  Gallus,  who  was  in  quest  of  subjects  which 
he  might  turn  into  elegies.  It  has  been  remarked  that  these 
poems  are  peculiarly  sad,  but  a  better  word  for  them  is 
coarse.  Unbridled  lust,  incest,  TratSepacm'a,  and  adultery  are 
the  favorite  motives  in  them,  and  few  rise  above  the  mephit- 
ic  atmosphere  which  breathes  from  Cephalus  and  Procris  or 
other  stories  of  crime,  like  that  of  Philomela  and  Procne, 
which  were  so  popular  among  Greek  and  Roman  poets,  and 
presumably  suited  their  readers.  With  amusing  naivete 
Eckstein  pleads  for  these  "  specimens  of  antique  romance " 
on  the  ground  that  there  is  more  lubricity  in  Bandello  and 
Boccaccio  ! — which  is  like  declaring  that  a  man  who  assassi- 
nates another  by  simply  hitting  him  on  the  head  is  virtuous 
because  there  are  others  who  make  murder  a  fine  art.  I  com- 
mend the  stories  of  Parthenius  to  the  special  attention  of  any 
one  who  may  have  any  lingering  doubts  as  to  the  difference 
between  Greek  ideas  of  love  and  modern  ideals.1 


GREEK   ROMANCES 

Parthenius  is  regarded  as  a  connecting  link  of  the  Alexan- 
drian school  with  the  Roman  poets  on  one  side,  and  on  the 
other  with  the  romances  which  constitute  the  last  phase  of 
Greek  erotic  literature.2  In  these  romances  too,  a  number  of 
my  critics  professed  to  discover  romantic  love.  The  reviewer 
of  my  book  in  Nature  (London)  asked  me  to  see  whether 

1  No  more  like  stories  of  romantic  love  than  these  are  the  five  "love-stories  " 
written  in  the  second  century  after  Christ  by  Plutarch.  This  is  the  more  re- 
markable as  Plutarch  was  one  of  the  few  ancient  writers  to  whom  at  any  rate 
the  idea  occurred  that  women  might  be.  able  to  feel  and  inspire  a  love  rising 
above  the  senses.  This  suggestion  is  what  distinguishes  his  Diaiofpie  on  Love 
most  favorably  from  Plato's  Symposium,  which  it  otherwise,  however,  resembles 
strikingly  in  the  peculiar  notions  regarding  the  relation  of  the  sexes  ;  showing 
how  tenacious  the  unnatural  Greek  ideas  were  in  Greek  life.  Plutarch's  various 
writings  show  that  though  he  had  advanced  notions  compared  with  other  Greeks, 
he  was  nearly  as  far  from  appreciating  true  femininity,  chivalry,  and  romantic 
love  as  Lucian,  who  also  wrote  a  dialogue  on  love  in  the  old-fashioned  manner. 

2Hirschig's  Scriptores  Erotici  begins  with  Parthenius  and  includes  Achilles 
Tatius,  Longus,  Xenophon,  Heliodorus,  Chariton,  etc.  The  right-hand  column 
gives  a  literal  translation  into  Latin. 


GREEK    ROMANCES  807 

Heliodorus's  account  of  the  loves  of  Theagenes  and  Chariclea 
does  not  come  up  to  my  standard.  I  am  sorry  to  say  it  does 
not.  Jowett  perhaps  dismisses  this  story  somewhat  too  curtly 
as  "  silly  and  obscene  "  ;  but  it  certainly  is  far  from  being  a 
love-story  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word,  though  its  moral 
tone  is  doubtless  superior  to  that  of  the  other  Greek  ro- 
mances. The  notion  that  it  indicates  an  advance  in  erotic 
literature  may  no  doubt  be  traced  to  the  legend  that  Heliodo- 
rus  was  a  bishop,  and  that  he  introduced  Christian  ideas 
into  his  romance  —  a  theory  which  Professor  Rohde  has  scuttled 
and  sent  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.1  The  preservation  of  the 
heroine's  virginity  amid  incredible  perils  and  temptations  is 
one  of  the  tricks  of  the  Greek  novelists,  the  real  object  of 
which  is  made  most  apparent  in  Daphnis  and  Ohloe.  The  ex- 
traordinary emphasis  placed  on  it  on  every  possible  occasion 
is  not  only  very  indelicate,  but  it  shows  how  novel  and  re- 
markable such  an  idea  was  considered  at  the  time.  It  was 
one  of  the  tricks  of  the  Sophists  (with  whom  Heliodorus  must 
be  classed),  who  were  in  the  habit  of  treating  a  moral  question 
like  a  mathematical  problem.  "  Given  a  maiden's  innocence, 
how  can  it  be  preserved  to  the  end  of  the  story  ?  "  is  the  arti- 
ficial, silly,  and  vulgar  leading  motive  of  this  Greek  romance, 
as  of  others.  Huet,  Villemain,  and  many  other  critics  have 
been  duped  by  this  sophistico-mathematical  aspect  of  the 
story  into  descanting  on  the  peculiar  purity  and  delicacy  of 
its  moral  tone  ;  but  one  need  only  read  a  few  of  the  heroine's 
speeches  to  see  how  absurd  this  judgment  is.  When  she  says 
to  her  lover,  "  I  resigned  myself  to  you,  not  as  to  a  paramour, 
but  as  to  a  legitimate  husband,  and  I  have  preserved  my 
chastity  with  you,  resisting  your  urgent  solicitations  because 
I  always  had  in  mind  the  lawful  marriage  to  which  we  pledged 
ourselves,"  she  uses  the  language  of  a  shrewd  hetaira,  not 
of  an  innocent  girl  ;  nor  could  the  author  have  made  her  say 
the  following  had  his  subject  been  romantic  love  :  'Op/u^v  yap, 


1  Der  Griechische  Roman,  432-67.  An  excrescence  of  this  theory  is  the  foolish 
story  that  "Bishop  "  Heliodorus,  being  called  upon  by  a  provincial  synod  either 
to  destroy  his  erotic  books  or  to  abdicate  his  position,  preferred  the  latter  alter- 
native. The  date  of  the  real  Heliodorus  is  perhaps  the  end  of  the  third  or  the 
first  half  of  the  fourth  century  after  Christ. 


808          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 


O.VTITVTTOS 


eoretAe  /ecu   TO   KCXTO^U   TT?S  ope^ews  Tto  r/Set  r^s   cTTay-yeA-ias 

The  story  of  Heliodbrus  is  full  of  such  coarse  remarks,  and 
his  idea  of  love  is  plainly  enough  revealed  when  he  moralizes 
that  "  a  lover  inclines  to  drink  and  one  who  is  drunk  is  in- 
clined to  love/7 

It  is  not  only  on  account  of  this  coarseness  that  the  story 
of  Theagenes  and  Ohariclea  fails  to  come  up  to  the  standard 
of  romantic  love.  When  Arsace  (VIII.,  9)  imprisons  the 
lovers  together,  with  the  idea  that  the  sight  of  their  chains 
will  increase  the  sufferings  of  each,  we  have  an  intimation  of 
crude  sympathy  ;  but  apart  from  that  the  symptoms  of  love 
referred  to  in  the  course  of  the  romance  are  the  same  that  I 
have  previously  enumerated,  as  peculiar  to  Alexandrian  lit- 
erature. The  maxims,  "  dread  the  revenge  that  follows  neg- 
lected love  ;  "  "  love  soon  finds  its  end  in  satiety  ;  "  and 
"the  greatest  happiness  is  to  be  free  from  love,/'  take  us  back 
to  the  oldest  Greek  times.  Peculiarly  Greek,  too,  is  the 
scene  in  which  the  women,  unable  to  restrain  their  feelings, 
fling  fruits  and  flowers  at  a  young  man  because  he  is  so  beau- 
tiful ;  although  on  the  same  page  we  are  suprised  by  the 
admission  that  woman's  beauty  is  even  more  alluring  than 
man's,  which  is  not  a  Greek  sentiment. 

In  this  last  respect,  as  in  some  others,  the  romance  of  He- 
liodorus  differs  favorably  from  that  of  Achilles  Tatius,  which 
relates  the  adventures  of  Leucippe  and  Clitophon  ;  but  1 
need  not  dwell  on  this  amazingly  obscene  and  licentious 
narrative,  as  its  author's  whole  philosophy  of  love,  like  that 
of  Heliodorus,  is  summed  up  in  this  passage  :  "  As  the  wine 
produced  its  effect  I  cast  lawless  glances  at  Leucippe  :  for 
Love  and  Bacchus  are  violent  gods,  they  invade  the  soul  and 
so  inflame  it  that  they  forget  modesty,  and  while  one  kindles 
the  flame  the  other  supplies  the  fuel  ;  for  wine  is  the  food  of 
love."  Nor  need  I  dwell  on  the  stories  of  Chariton,  Xenophon 
of  Ephesus,  or  the  epic  Dionysiaca  of  JSTonnus,  as  they  yield 
us  no  new  points  of  view.  The  romance  of  Lougus,  however, 
calls  for  some  remarks,  as  it  is  the  best  known  of  the  Greek 


DAPHNIS   AND    CHLOE  809 

novels  and  has  often  been  pronounced  a  story  of  refined  love 
worthy  of  a  modern  writer. 


DAPHNIS   AND    CHLOE 

Goethe  found  in  Daphnis  and  Chloe  "  a  delicacy  of  feeling 
which  cannot  be  excelled."  Professor  Murray  backs  up  the 
morals  of  Longus  :  "It  needs  an  unintelligent  reader  or  a  mor- 
bid translator,"  he  writes  (403),  "  to  find  harm  in  the  His- 
tory of  Daphnis  and  Chloe;"  and  an  editorial  writer  in  the 
New  York  Mail  and  Express  accused  me,  as  before  intimated, 
of  unexampled  ignorance  for  not  knowing  that  Daphnis 
and  Chloe  is  "  as  sweet  and  beautiful  a  love-story  as  ever 
skipped  in  prose."  This,  indeed,  is  the  prevalent  opinion. 
How  it  ever  arose  is  a  mystery  to  me.  Fiction  has  always 
been  the  sphere  of  the  most  unrestrained  license,  yet  Dunlop 
wrote  in  his  History  of  Fiction  that  there  are  in  this  story 
''  particular  passages  so  extremely  reprehensible  that  I  know 
nothing  like  them  in  almost  any  work  whatever."  In  collect- 
ing the  material  for  the  present  volume  I  have  been  obliged 
to  examine  thousands  of  books  referring  to  the  relations  of 
men  and  women,  but  I  declare  that  of  all  the  books  I  have 
seen  only  the  Hindoo  Kamasutram,  the  literal  version  of  the 
Arabian  Nights,  and  the  American  Indian  stories  collected 
by  Dr.  Boas,  can  compare  with  this  ( '  sweet  and  beautiful " 
romance  of  Longus  in  downright  obscenity  or  deliberate  las- 
civiousness.  I  have  been  able,  without  going  beyond  the 
latitude  permissible  to  anthropologists,  to  give  a  fairly  ac- 
curate idea  of  the  love-affairs  of  savages  and  barbarians  ;  but 
I  find  it  impossible,  after  several  trials,  to  sum  up  the  story 
of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  without  going  beyond  the  limits  of 
propriety.  Among  all  the  deliberate  pictures  of  moral  de- 
pravity painted  by  Greek  and  Roman  authors  not  one  is  so 
objectionable  as  this  "  idyllic  "  picture  of  the  innocent  shep- 
herd boy  and  girl.  Pastoral  love  is  coarse  enough,  in  all 
truth  :  but  this  story  is  infinitely  more  immoral  than,  for  in- 
stance, the  frank  and  natural  sensualism  of  the  twenty- 
seventh  Idyl  of  Theocritus.  Professor  Anthon  (755)  de- 


810  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND    POEMS 

scribed  the  story  of  Daphnis  and  Chloe  as  "  the  romance, 
par  excellence,  of  physical  love.  It  is  a  history  of  the  senses 
rather  than  of  the  mind,  a  picture  of  the  development  of  the 
instincts  rather  than  of  the  sentiments.  .  .  .  Paul  and 
Virginia  is  nothing  more  than  Daphnis  and  Chloe  delineated 
by  a  refined  and  cultivated  mind,  and  spiritualized  and  pu- 
rified by  the  influence  of  Christianity/'  This  is  true  ;  but 
Anthon  erred  decidedly  in  saying  that  in  the  Greek  story 
"  vice  is  advocated  by  no  sophistry."  On  the  contrary,  what 
makes  this  romance  so  peculiarly  objectionable  is  that  it  is 
a  master  work  of  that  kind  of  fiction  which  makes  vice  allur- 
ing under  the  sophistical  veil  of  innocence.  Longus  knew 
very  well  that  nothing  is  so  tempting  to  libertines  as  purity 
and  ignorant  innocence  ;  hence  he  made  purity  and  ignorant 
innocence  the  pivot  of  his  prurient  story.  Professor  Rohde 
(516)  has  rudely  torn  the  veil  from  his  sly  sophistry  : 

"  The  way  in  which  Longus  excites  the  sensual  desires  of 
the  lovers  by  means  of  licentious  experiments  going  always 
only  to  the  verge  of  gratification,  betrays  an  abominably  hyp- 
ocritical raffinement l  which  reveals  in  the  most  disagreeable 
manner  that  the  naivete  of  this  idyllist  is  a  premeditated  ar- 
tifice and  he  himself  nothing  but  a  sophist.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  how  anyone  could  have  ever  been  deceived  so  far 
as  to  overlook  the  sophistical  character  of  this  pastoral  ro- 
mance of  Longus,  or  could  have  discovered  genuine  naivete 
in  this  most  artificial  of  all  rhetorical  productions.  No  at- 
tentive reader  who  has  some  acquaintance  with  the  ways  of 
the  Sophistic  writers  will  have  any  difficulty  in  apprehending 
the  true  inwardness  of  the  stpry.  ...  As  this  sophist, 
in  those  offensively  licentious  love-scenes,  suddenly  shows 
the  cloven  foot  under  the  cloak  of  innocence,  so,  on  the  other 
hand,  his  eager  desire  to  appear  as  simple  and  childlike  as 
possible  often  enough  makes  him  cold,  finical,  trifling,  or  ut- 
terly silly  in  his  affectation." 2 

1  He  refers  in  a  footnote  to  such  scenes  as  are  painted  in  I.,  32,  4  ;  II.,  9,  11  ; 
III.,  14,  24,  3  ;  IV.,  6,  3 — scenes  and  hypocritically  naive  experiments  which  he 
justly  considers  much  more  offensive  than  the  notorious  scene  between  Daphnia 
and  Lykainion  (III.,  18). 

2  Rohde   (516)   tries  to  excuse  Goethe  for  his  ridiculous  praise   of  this  ro- 
mance (Eckermann,  II. ,  305,  318-321,  322)  because  he  knew  the  story  only  in 
the  French  version  of  Amyot- Courier.     But  I  find  that  this  version  retains 
most  of  the  coarseness  of  the  original,  and  I  see  no  reason  for  seeking  any  other 
explanation  of  Goethe's  attitude  than  his  own  indelicacy  and  obtuseness  which, 
as  I  noted  on  page  208,  made  him  ?o  into  ecstacies  of  ad  miration  over  a  servant 


HERO   AND   LEANDER  811 

Apart  from  his  coarseness,  there  is  nothing  in  Longus's 
conception  of  love  that  goes  beyond  the  ideas  of  the  Alexan- 
drians. Of  the  symptoms  of  true  love  —  mental  or  sentimen- 
tal, esthetic  and  sympathetic,  altruistic  and  supersensual, 
he  knows  no  more  than  Sappho  did  a  thousand  years  before 
him.  Indeed,  in  making  lovers  become  indolent,  cry  out  as 
if  they  had  been  beaten,  and  jump  into  rivers  as  if  they  were 
afire,  he  is  even  cruder  and  more  absurd  than  Sappho  was  in 
her  painting  of  sensual  passion.  His  whole  idea  of  love  is 
summed  up  in  what  the  old  shepherd  Philetas  says  to  Daph- 

nis  and  Chloe  (II.,  7)  '.  "Eyi/cjp  8*  eyo)  /cat  ravpov  epao-^eVra  KCU  ws 
otcrrpa)  TrAryyets   e/xvKaro,    /cat    rpayov    <^>tXr^(ravTa   alya    /cat 

AUTOS  /xev  yap  rjfjifjv  i/eos  /cat  r}pacr$€v  A//,apuAAt'8os. 


HERO   AND   LEANDER 

Our  survey  of  Greek  erotic  literature  may  be  brought  to  a 
close  with  two  famous  stories  which  are  closely  allied  to  the 
Greek  romances,  although  one  of  them  —  Hero  and  Leander  — 
was  written  in  verse,  and  the  other  —  Cupid  and  Psyche  —  in 
Latin  prose.  While  Apuleius  was  an  African  and  wrote  his 
story  in  Latin,  he  evidently  derived  it  from  a  Greek  source.1 
He  lived  in  the  second  century  of  our  era,  and  Musaeus,  the 
author  of  Hero  and  Leander,  in  the  fifth.  It  is  more  than 
probable  that  Musaeus  did  not  invent  the  story,  but  found  it 
as  a  local  legend  and  simply  adorned  it  with  his  pen. 

On  the  shores  of  the  Hellespont,  near  the  narrowest  part  of 
the  strait,  lay  the  cities  of  Sestos  and  Abydos.  It  was  at  Sestos 
that  Xerxes  undertook  to  cross  with  his  vast  armies,  while 
Abydos  claimed  to  be  the  true  burial  place  of  Osiris  ;  yet 
these  circumstance  were  considered  insignificant  in  compar- 

whom  lust  prompted  to  attempt  rape  and  commit  murder.  As  for  Professor 
Murray,  his  remarks  are  explicable  only  on  the  assumption  that  he  has  never 
read  this  story  in  the  original.  This  is  not  a  violent  assumption.  Some  years 
ago  a  prominent  professor  of  literature,  ancient  and  modern,  in  a  leading  Amer- 
ican university,  hearing  me  say  one  day  that  Daphnis  and  Chloe  was  one  of  the 
most  immoral  stories  ever  written,  asked  in  a  tone  of  surprise:  "Have  you 
read  it  in  the  original  ?  "  Evidently  he  never  had  !  It  is  needless  to  add  that 
translations  never  exceed  the  originals  in  impropriety  and  usually  improve  on 
them.  The  Rev.  Rowland  Smith,  who  prepared  the  English  version  for  Bohn's 
Library,  found  himself  obliged  repeatedly  to  resort  to  Latin. 
1  Seo  Rehde,  345  ;  on  Musaeus,  472,  133. 


812  GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

ison  with  the  fact  that  it  was  from  Abydos  to  Sestos  and 
back  that  Leander  was  fabled  to  have  swum  on  his  nightly 
visits  to  his  beloved  Hero  ;  for  the  coins  of  both  the  cities 
were  adorned  with  the  solitary  tower  in  which  Hero  was  sup- 
posed to  live  at  the  time.  Why  she  lived  there  is  not  stated 
by  any  of  the  poets  who  elaborated  the  legend,  but  it  may  be 
surmised  that  she  did  so  in  order  to  give  them  a  chance  to  in- 
vent a  romantic  story.  To  the  present  day  the  Turks  point 
out  what  they  claim  to  be  her  tower,  and  it  is  well-known 
that  in  1810,  Lord  Byron  and  Lieutenant  Ekenhead,  in  order 
to  test  the  possibility  of  Leander's  feat,  swam  from  Europe  to 
Asia  at  this  place  ;  it  took  them  an  hour  and  five  and  an 
hour  and  ten  minutes  respectively,  and  on  account  of  the 
strong  current  the  distance  actually  traversed  was  estimated 
at  more  than  four  miles,  while  in  a  straight  line  it  was  only  a 
mile  from  shore  to  shore. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  (202,  204)  that  the  action  of 
Leander  in  swimming  across  this  strait  for  the  sake  of  enjoy- 
ing the  favor  of  Hero,  and  her  suicide  when  she  finds  him  dead 
on  the  rocks,  have  nothing  so  do  with  the  altruistic  self-sacri- 
fice that  indicates  soul-love.  Here  I  merely  wish  to  remark 
that  apart  from  that  there  is  not  a  line  or  word  in  the  whole 
poem  to  prove  that  this  story  "  completely  upsets  "  my  theory, 
as  one  critic  wrote.  The  story  is  not  merely  frivolous  and 
cold,  as  W.  von  Humboldt  called  it ;  it  is  as  unmitigated ly 
sensual  as  Dap/mis  and  C'hloe,  though  less  offensively  so 
because  it  does  not  add  the  vice  of  hypocrisy  to  its  immod- 
esty. From  beginning  to  end  there  is  but  one  thought  in 
Leander's  mind,  as  there  is  in  Hero's,  whose  words  and 
actions  are  even  more  indelicate  than  those  of  Leander ;  they 
are  the  words  and  actions  of  a  priestess  of  Venus  true  to  her 
function — a  girl  to  whom  the  higher  feminine  virtues,  which 
alone  can  inspire  romantic  love,  are  unknown.  On  the 
impulse  of  the  moment,  in  response  to  coarse  flattery,  she 
makes  an  assignation  in  a  lonely  tower  with  a  perfect  stranger, 
regardless  of  her  parents,  her  honor,  her  future.  Details  need 
not  be  cited,  as  the  poem  is  accessible  to  everybody.  It  is  a 
romantic  story,  in  Ovid's  version  even  more  so  than  in  that 


\ 


CUPID    AND    PSYCHE  813 

of  Musaeus ;  but  of  romantic  love — soul-love — there  is  no 
trace  in xeither  version.  There  are  touches  of  sentimentality 
in  Ovid,  but  not  of  sentiment  ;  a  distinction  on  which  I 
should  have  dwelt  in  my  first  book  (91). 


CUPID    AND    PSYCHE 

To  a  student  of  comparative  literature  the  story  of  Cupid 
and  Psyche1  is  one  of  those  tales  which  are  current  in  many 
countries  (and  of  which  Lohengrin  is  a  familiar  instance), 
that  were  originally  intended  as  object  lessons  to  enforce  the 
moral  that  women  must  not  be  too  inquisitive  regarding  their 
lovers  or  husbands,  who  may  seem  monsters,  but  in  reality  are 
gods  and  should  be  accepted  as  such.  If  most  persons,  never- 
theless, fancy  that  Cupid  and  Psyche  is  a  story  of  "  modern  " 
romantic  love,  that  is  presumably  due  to  the  fact  that  most 
persons  have  never  read  it.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  had 
Apuleius  really  known  such  a  thing  as  modern  romantic  love 
— or  conjugal  affection  either — it  would  have  required  great 
ingenuity  on  his  part  to  invent  a  plot  from  which  those 
qualities  are  so  rigorously  excluded.  Romantic  love  means 
pre-matrimonial  infatuation,  based  not  only  on  physical 
charms  but  on  soul-beauty.  The  time  when  alone  it  flour- 
ishes with  its  mental  purity,  its  minute  sympathies,  its  gal- 
lant attentions  and  sacrifices,  its  hyperbolic  adorations,  and 
mixed  moods  of  agonies  and  ecstasies,  is  during  the  period  of 
courtship.  Now  from  the  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche  this 
period  is  absolutely  eliminated.  Venus  is  jealous  because 
divine  honors  are  paid  to  the  Princess  Psyche  on  account  of 
her  beauty  ;  so  she  sends  her  son  Cupid  to  punish  Psyche  by 
making  her  fall  in  love  violently  (amore  flagrantissimo]  with 
the  lowest,  poorest,  and  most  abject  man  on  earth.  Just  at 
that  time  Psyche  has  been  exposed  by  the  king  on  a  moun- 
tain top  in  obedience  to  an  obscure  oracle.  Cupid  sees  her 
there,  and,  disobeying  his  mother's  orders,  has  her  brought 
while  asleep,  by  his  servant  Zephir,  to  a  beautiful  palace, 

1  Lucii   Apulei  Metamorphoseon,  Libri  XI.,  Ed.  van  der  Vliet  (Teubner), 
IV.,  89-136. 


814          GREEK   LOVE-STORIES   AND   POEMS 

where  all  the  luxuries  of  life  are  provided  for  her  by  unseen 
hands ;  and  at  night,  after  she  has  retired,  an  unknown  lover 
visits  her,  disappearing  again  before  dawn  (jamque  aderat 
ignobilis  maritus  et  torum  inscenderat  et  uxorem  sibi 
Psychen  fecerat  et  ante  lucis  exortum  propere  discesserat). 

Now  follow  some  months  in  which  Psyche  is  neither 
maiden  nor  wife.  Even  if  they  had  been  properly  married 
there  would  have  been  no  opportunity  for  the  development 
or  manifestation  of  supersensual  conjugal  attachment,  for  all 
this  time  Psyche  is  never  allowed  even  to  see  her  lover  ;  and 
when  an  opportunity  arises  for  her  to  show  her  devotion  to 
him  she  fails  utterly  to  rise  to  the  occasion.  One  night  he 
informs  her  that  her  two  sisters,  who  are  unhappily  married, 
are  trying  to  find  her,  and  he  warns  her  seriously  not  to 
heed  them  in  any  way,  should  they  succeed  in  their  efforts. 
She  promises,  but  spends  the  whole  of  the  next  day  weeping 
and  wailing  because  she  is  locked  up  in  a  beautiful  prison, 
unable  to  see  her  sisters — very  unlike  a  loving  modern  girl 
on  her  honeymoon,  whose  one  desire  is  to  be  alone  with  her 
beloved,  giving  him  a  monopoly  of  her  affection  and  enjoy- 
ing a  monopoly  of  his,  with  no  distractions  or  jealousies  to 
mar  their  happiness.  Cupid  chides  her  for  being  sad  and 
dissatisfied  even  amid  his  caresses  and  he  again  warns  her 
against  her  scheming  sisters ;  whereat  she  goes  so  far  as  to 
threaten  to  kill  herself  unless  he  allows  her  to  receive  her 
sisters.  He  consents  at  last,  after  making  her  promise  not  to 
let  them  persuade  her  to  try  to  find  out  anything  about  his 
personal  appearance,  lest  such  forbidden  curiosity  make  her 
lose  him  forever.  Nevertheless,  when,  on  their  second  visit, 
the  sisters,  filled  with  envy,  try  to  persuade  her  that  her  un- 
seen lover  is  a  monster  who  intends  to  eat  her  after  she  has 
grown  fat,  and  that  to  save  herself  she  must  cutoff  his  head 
while  he  is  asleep,  she  resolves  to  follow  their  advice.  But 
when  she  enters  the  room  at  night,  with  a  knife  in  one  hand 
and  a  lamp  in  the  other,  and  sees  the  beautiful  god  Cupid  in 
her  bed,  she  is  so  agitated  that  a  drop  of  hot  oil  falls  from  her 
lamp  on  his  face  and  wakes  him  ;  whereupon,  after  re- 
proaching her,  he  rises  on  his  wings  and  forsakes  her. 


CUPID   AND   PSYCHE  815 

Overcome  with  grief,  Psyche  tries  to  end  her  life  by  jump- 
ing into  a  river,  but  Zephir  saves  her.  Then  she  takes 
revenge  on  her  sisters  by  calling  on  them  separately  and  tell- 
ing each  one  that  Cupid  had  deserted  her  because  he  had  seen 
her  with  lamp  and  knife,  and  that  he  was  now  going  to 
marry  one  of  them.  The  sisters  hasten  one  after  the  other 
to  the  rock,  but  Zephir  fails  to  catch  them,  and  they  are 
dashed  to  pieces.  Venus  meanwhile  had  discovered  the 
escapade  of  her  boy  and  locked  him  up  till  his  wound  from 
the  hot  oil  was  healed.  Her  anger  now  vents  itself  on 
Psyche.  She  sets  her  several  impossible  tasks,  but  Psyche, 
with  supernatural  aid,  accomplishes  all  of  them  safely.  At 
last  Cupid  manages  to  escape  through  a  window.  He  finds 
Psyche  lying  on  the  road  like  a  corpse,  wakes  her  and  Mer- 
cury brings  her  to  heaven,  where  at  last  she  is  properly 
married  to  Cupid — sic  rite  Psyche  convenit  in  mamim 
Cupidims  et  nascitur  illis  maturo  partu  filia,  quam  Volup- 
tatem  nominamus. 

Such  is  the  much-vaunted  "  love-story "  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche  !  Commentators  have  found  all  sorts  of  fanciful  and 
absurd  allegories  in  this  legend.  Its  real  significance  I  have 
already  pointed  out.  But  it  may  be  looked  at  from  still  an- 
other point  of  view.  Psyche  means  soul,  and  in  the  story  of 
Apuleius  Cupid  does  not  fall  in  love  with  a  soul,  but  with  a 
beautiful  body.  This  sums  up  Hellenic  love  in  general.  The 
Greek  Cupid  NEVER  fell  in  love  ivith  a  Psyche. 


UTILITY  AND  FUTUEE   OF  LOYE 

THE  Greek  view  that  love  is  a  disease  and  a  calamity  still 
prevails  extensively  among  persons  who,  like  the  Greeks, 
have  never  experienced  real  love  and  do  not  know  what  it  is. 
In  a  book  dated  1868  and  entitled  Modern  Women  I  find  the 
following  passage  (325)  :  "  Already  the  great  philosopher  of 
the  age  has  pronounced  that  the  passion  of  love  plays  far 
too  important  a  part  in  human  existence,  and  that  it  is  a  ter- 
rible obstacle  to  human  progress.  The  general  temper  of  the 
times  echoes  the  sentence  of  Mill."  It  is  significant  that  this 
opinion  should  have  emanated  from  a  man  whose  idea  of 
femininity  was  as  masculine  as  that  of  the  Greeks — an  ideal 
which,  by  eliminating  or  suppressing  the  secondary  and  terti- 
ary (mental)  sexual  qualities,  necessarily  makes  love  synony- 
mous with  lust. 

There  is  another  large  class  of  persons  who  likewise  con- 
sider love  a  disease,  but  a  harmless  one,  like  the  measles, 
or  mumps,  which  it  is  well  to  have  as  early  as  possible,  so  as  to 
be  done  with  it,  and  which  seldom  does  any  harm.  Others, 
still,  regard  it  as  a  sort  of  juvenile  holiday,  like  a  trip  to 
Italy  or  California,  which  is  delightful  while  it  lasts  and 
leaves  pleasant  memories  thonghout  life,  but  is  otherwise  of 
no  particular  use. 

It  shows  a  most  extraordinary  ignorance  of  the  ways  of 
nature  to  suppose  that  it  should  have  developed  so  powerful 
an  instinct  and  sentiment  for  no  useful  purpose,  or  even  as 
a  detriment  to  the  race.  That  is  not  the  way  nature  oper- 
ates. In  reality  love  is  the  most  useful  thing  in  the  world. 
The  two  most  important  objects  of  the  human  race  are  its 
own  preservation  and  improvement,  and  in  both  of  these 
directions  love  is  the  mightiest  of  all  agencies.  It  makes  the 

816 


UTILITY   AND    FUTURE   OF   LOVE  817 

world  go  round.  Take  it  away,  and  in  a  few  years  animal 
life  will  be  as  extinct  on  this  planet  as  it  is  on  the  moon. 
And  by  preferring  youth  to  age,  health  to  disease,  beauty  to 
deformity,  it  improves  the  human  type,  slowly  but  steadily. 
.  The  first  thinker  who  clearly  recognized  and  emphatically 
asserted  the  superlative  importance  of  love  was  Schopenhauer. 
Whereas  Hegel  (II.,  184)  parroted  the  popular  opinion  that 
love  is  peculiarly  and  exclusively  the  affair  of  the  two  in- 
dividuals whom  it  directly  involves,  having  no  concern  with 
the  eternal  interests  of  family  and  race,  no  universality  (All- 
gemeinheit),  Schopenhauer's  keen  mind  on  the  contrary  saw 
that  love,  though  the  most  individualized  of  all  passions,  con- 
cerns the  race  even  more  than  the  individual.  "  Die  Zusam- 
mensetzung  der  niichsten  Generation,  e  qua  iterum  pendent 
iimnmerae  generationes  " — the  very  composition  and  essence  of 
the  next  generation  and  of  countless  generations  following  it, 
depends,  as  he  says,  on  the  particular  choice  of  a  mate.  If 
an  ugly,  vicious,  diseased  mate  be  chosen,  his  or  her  bad 
qualities  are  transmitted  to  the  following  generations,  for 
"  the  gods  visit  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children/'  as 
even  the  old  sages  knew,  long  before  science  had  revealed  the 
laws  of  heredity.  Not  only  the  husband's  and  the  wife's 
personal  qualities  are  thus  transmitted  to  the  children  and 
children's  children,  but  those  also  of  four  grandparents, 
eight  great-grandparents,  and  so  on  ;  and  when  we  bear  in 
mind  the  tremendous  differences  in  the  inheritable  ances- 
tral traits  of  families — virtues  or  infirmities — we  see  of  what 
incalculable  importance  to  the  future  of  families  is  that  in- 
dividual preference  which  is  so  vital  an  ingredient  of  roman- 
tic love. 

It  is  true  that  love  is  not  infallible.  It  is  still,  as  Brown- 
ing puts  it,  "  blind,  oft-failing,  half-enlightened."  It  may 
be  said  that  marriage  itself  is  not  necessary  for  the  mainten- 
ance of  the  species  ;  but  it  is  useful  both  for  its  maintenance 
and  its  improvement ;  hence  natural  selection  has  favored  it 
— especially  the  monogamous  form — in  the  interest  of  coming 
generations.  Love  is  simply  an  extension  of  this  process — 
making  it  efficacious  before  marriage  and  thus  quintupling 


818  UTILITY   AND    FUTURE    OF   LOVE 

its  importance.  It  makes  many  mistakes,,  for  it  is  a  young 
instinct,  and  it  has  to  do  with  a  very  complex  problem,  so 
that  its  development  is  slow  ;  but  it  has  a  great  future, 
especially  now  that  intelligence  is  beginning  to  encourage 
and  help  it.  But  while  admitting  that  love  is  fallible  we. 
must  be  careful  not  to  decry  it  for  mistakes  with  which  it  has 
no  concern.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that  every  self-made 
match  is  a  love-match  :  yet,  whenever  such  a  marriage  is  a 
failure,  love  is  held  responsible.  We  must  remember,  too, 
that  there  are  two  kinds  of  love  and  that  the  lower  kind  does 
not  choose  as  wisely  as  the  higher.  Where  animal  passion 
alone  is  involved,  parents  cannot  be  blamed  for  trying  to 
curb  it.  As  a  rule,  love  of  all  kinds  can  be  checked  or  even 
cured,  and  an  eifort  to  do  this  should  be  made  in  all  cases 
where  it  is  found  to  be  bestowed  on  a  person  likely  to  taint 
the  offspring  with  vicious  propensities  or  serious  disease. 
But,  with  all  its  liability  to  error,  romantic  love  is  usually  the 
safest  guide  to  marriage,  and  even  sensual  love  of  the  more 
refined,  esthetic  type  is  ordinarily  preferable  to  what  are 
called  marriages  of  reason,  because  love  (as  distinguished  from 
abnormal,  unbridled  lust)  always  is  guided  by  youth  and 
health,  thus  insuring  a  healthy,  vigorous  offspring. 

If  it  be  asked,  "Are  not  the  parents  who  arrange  the 
marriages  of  reason  also  guided  as  a  rule  by  considerations  of 
health,  moral  and  physical  ?"  the  answer  is  a  most  emphatic 
"  No."  Parental  fondness,  sufficing  for  the  preservation 
and  rearing  of  children,  is  a  very  old  thing,  but  parental  af- 
fection, which  is  altruistically  concerned  for  the  weal  of  chil- 
dren in  after-life,  is  a  comparatively  modern  invention.  The 
foregoing  chapters  have  taught  us  that  an  Australian  father's 
object  in  giving  his  daughter  in  marriage  was  to  get  in  ex- 
change a  new  girl-wife  for  himself  ;  what  became  of  the 
daughter,  or  what  sort  of  a  man  got  her,  did  not  concern 
him  in  the  least.  Among  Africans  and  American  Indians 
the  object  of  bringing  up  daughters  and  giving  them  in  mar- 
riage was  to  secure  cows  or  ponies  in  return  for  them.  In 
India  the  object  of  marriage  was  the  rearing  of  sons  or  daugh- 
ters' sons  for  the  purpose  of  saving  the  souls  of  their  parents 


UTILITY   AND   FUTURE   OF   LOVE  819 

from  perdition  ;  so  they  flung  them  into  the  arms  of  anyone 
who  would  take  them.  The  Greeks  and  the  Hebrews  married 
to  perpetuate  their  family  name  or  to  supply  the  state  with 
soldiers.  In  Japan  and  China  ancestral  and  family  considera- 
tions have  always  been  of  infinitely  more  importance  than  the 
individual  inclinations  or  happiness  of  the  bridal  couple. 
Wherever  we  look  we  find  this  topsy-turvy  state  of  affairs — 
marriages  made  to  suit  the  parents  instead  of  the  bride  and 
groom ;  while  the  welfare  of  the  grandchildren  is  of  course 
never  dreamt  of. 

This  outrageous  parental  selfishness  and  tyranny,,  so  detri- 
mental to  the  interests  of  the  human  race,  was  gradually 
mitigated  as  civilization  progressed  in  Europe.  Marriages 
were  no  longer  made  for  the  benefit  of  the  parents  alone,  but 
with  a  view  to  the  comfort  and  worldly  advantages  of  the 
couple  to  be  wedded.  "But  rank,  money,  dowry,  continued — 
and  continue  in  Europe  to  this  day — to  be  the  chief  match- 
makers, few  parents  rising  to  the  consideration  of  the  wel- 
fare of  the  grandchildren.  The  grandest  task  of  the  moral- 
ity of  the  future  will  be  to  make  parental  altruism  extend  to 
these  grandchildren  ;  that  is,  to  make  parents  and  everyone 
else  abhor  and  discountenance  all  marriages  that  do  not  in- 
sure the  health  and  happiness  of  future  generations.  Love 
will  show  the  way.  Far  from  being  useless  or  detrimental  to 
the  human  race,  it  is  an  instinct  evolved  by  nature  as  a  de- 
fence of  the  race  against  parental  selfishness  and  criminal 
myopia  regarding  future  generations. 

Plato  observed  in  his  Statesman  (310)  that  "most  persons 
form  marriage  connections  without  due  regard  to  what  is 
best  for  procreation  of  children."  "  They  seek  after  wealth 
and  power,  which  in  matrimony  are  objects  not  worthy  even 
of  serious  censure."  But  his  remedy  for  this  evil  was,  as  we 
have  seen  (775),  quite  as  bad  as  the  evil  itself,  since  it  in- 
volved promiscuity  and  the  elimination  of  chastity  and  family 
life.  Love  accomplishes  the  results  that  Plato  and  Lycurgus 
aimed  at,  so  far  as  healthy  offspring  is  concerned,  without 
making  the  same  sacrifices  and  reducing  human  marriage  to 
the  level  of  the  cattle-breeder.  It  accomplishes,  moreover, 


820  UTILITY    AND    FUTURE    OF   LOVE 

the  same  result  that  natural  selection  secures,  and  without 
its  cruelty,  by  simply  excluding  from  marriage  the  criminal, 
vicious,  crippled,  imbecile,  incurably  diseased  and  all  who  do 
not  come  up  to  its  standard  of  health,  vigor,  and  beauty. 

While  claiming  that  love  is  an  instinct  developed  by  nat- 
ure as  a  defence  against  the  short-sighted  selfishness  of  par- 
ents who  would  sacrifice  the  future  of  the  race  to  their  own 
advantage  or  that  of  their  children,  I  do  not  forget  that  in 
the  past  it  has  often  secured  its  results  in  an  illegitimate  way. 
That,  however,  was  no  fault  of  its  own,  being  due  to  the  arti- 
ficial and  foolish  obstacles  placed  in  its  way.  Laws  of  nature 
cannot  be  altered  by  man,  and  if  the  safety  valve  is  tied 
down  the  boiler  is  bound  to  explode.  In  countries  where 
marriages  are  habitually  arranged  by  the  parents  with  refer- 
ence to  rank  or  money  alone,  in  defiance  of  love,  the  only 
"  love-children  "  are  necessarily  illegitimate.  This  has  given 
rise  to  the  notion  that  illegitimate  children  are  apt  to  be 
more  beautiful,  healthy,  and  vigorous  than  the  issue  of 
regular  marriages  :  and,  under  the  circumstances,  it  was  true. 
But  for  this  topsy-turvyness,  this  folly,  this  immorality,  we 
must  not  blame  love,  but  those  who  persisently  thwarted 
love — or  tried  to  thwart  it.  As  soon  as  love  was  allowed  a 
voice  in  the  arrangement  of  marriages  illegitimacy  decreased 
rapidly.  Had  the  rights  of  love  been  recognized  sooner,  it 
would  have  proved  a  useful  ally  of  morality  instead  its  crafti- 
est enemy.1 

The  utility  of  love  from  a  moral  point  of  view  can  be 
shown  in  other  ways.  Many  tendencies — such  as  club  life, 
the  greater  ease  of  securing  divorces,  the  growing  indepen- 
dence of  women  and  their  disinclination  to  domesticity — are 
undermining  that  family  life  which  civilization  has  so  slowly 
and  laboriously  built  up,  and  fostering  celibacy.  Now  celib- 
acy is  not  only  unnatural  and  detrimental  to  health  and 
longevity,  but  it  is  the  main  root  of  immorality.  Its  anti- 
dote is  love,  the  most  persuasive  champion  and  promoter  of 
marriage.  No  reader  of  the  present  volume  can  fail  to  see 

1  See  the  remarks  on  Tristan  and  Isolde  in  my  Wagner  and  his  Works,  II., 
188. 


UTILITY   AND   FUTURE   OF   LOVE  821 

that  man  has  generally  managed  to  have  a  good  time  at  the 
expense  of  woman  and  it  is  she  who  benefits  particularly  by 
the  modern  phases  of  love  and  marriage.  Yet  in  recent 
years  the  notion  that  family  life  is  not  good  enough  for 
women,  and  that  they  should  be  brought  up  in  a  spirit  of 
manly  independence,  has  come  over  society  like  a  noxious 
epidemic.  It  is  quite  proper  that  there  should  be  avenues  of 
employment  for  women  who  have  no  one  to  support  them  ; 
but  it  is  a  grievous  error  to  extend  this  to  women  in  general, 
to  give  them  the  education,  tastes,  habits,  sports,  and  politics 
of  the  men.  It  antagonizes  that  sexual  differentiation  of 
the  more  refined  sort  on  which  romantic  love  depends  and 
tempts  men  to  seek  amusement  in  ephemeral,  shallow 
amours.  In  plain  English,  while  there  are  many  charming 
exceptions,  the  growing  masculinity  of  girls  is  the  main 
reason  why  so  many  of  them  remain  unmarried  ;  thus  fulfill- 
ing the  prediction  :  "  Could  we  make  her  as  the  man,  sweet 
love  were  slain."  Let  girls  return  to  their  domestic  sphere, 
make  themselves  as  delightfully  feminine  as  possible,  not  try- 
ing to  be  gnarled  oaks  but  lovely  vines  clinging  around  them, 
and  the  sturdy  oaks  will  joyously  extend  their  love  and  pro- 
tection to  them  amid  all  the  storms  of  life.  In  love  lies  the 
remedy  for  many  of  the  economic  problems  of  the  day. 

There  is  not  one  of  the  fourteen  ingredients  of  romantic 
love  which  cannot  be  shown  to  be  useful  in  some  way.  Of 
individual  preference  and  its  importance  in  securing  a  happy 
blend  of  qualities  for  the  next  generation  I  have  just  spoken, 
and  I  have  devoted  nearly  a  page  (131)  to  the  utility  of  coy- 
ness. Jealousy  has  helped  to  develop  chastity,  woman's  car- 
dinal virtue  and  the  condition  of  all  refinement  in  love  and  so- 
ciety. Monopolism  has  been  the  most  powerful  enemy  of  those 
two  colossal  evils  of  savagery  and  barbarism — promiscuity 
and  polygamy  ;  and  it  will  in  future  prove  as  fatal  an  enemy 
to  all  attempts  to  bring  back  promiscuity  under  the  absurd 
name  of  "  free  love,"  which  would  reduce  all  women  to  the 
level  of  prostitutes  and  make  men  desert  them  after  their 
charms  have  faded.  Two  other  ingredients  of  love — purity 
and  the  admiration  of  personal  beauty — are  of  great  value  to 


822  UTILITY   AND   FUTURE   OF   LOVE 

the  canse  of  morality  as  conquerors  of  lust,  which  they  an- 
tagonize and  suppress  by  favoring  the  higher  (mental)  sexual 
qualities  ;  while  the  sense  of  beauty  also  co-operates  with  the 
instinct  which  makes  for  the  health  of  future  generations  ; 
beauty  being  simply  the  flower  of  health,  and  inheritable. 

At  first  sight  it  may  seem  difficult  to  assign  any  use  to  the 
pride,  the  hyperbole,  and  the  mixed  moods  which  are  com- 
ponent elements  of  love  ;  but  they  are  of  value  inasmuch  as 
they  exalt  the  mind,  and  give  to  the  beloved  such  prominence 
and  importance  that  the  way  is  paved  for  the  altruistic  in- 
gredients of  romantic  love,  the  utility  of  which  is  so  obvious 
that  it  hardly  needs  to  be  hinted  at.  If  love  were  nothing 
more  than  a  lesson  in  altruism — with  many  the  first  and  only 
lesson  in  their  lives — it  would  be  second  in  importance  to  no 
other  factor  of  civilization.  Sympathy  lifts  the  lover  out  of 
the  deep  groove  of  selfishness,  teaching  him  the  miracle  of 
feeling  another's  pains  and  pleasures  more  keenly  than  his 
own.  Man's  adoration  of  woman  as  a  superior  being — which 
she  really  is,  as  the  distinctively  feminine  virtues  are  more 
truly  Christian  and  have  a  higher  ethical  value  than  the  mas- 
culine virtues — creates  an  ideal  which  has  improved  women 
by  making  them  ambitious  to  live  up  to  it.  No  one,  again, 
who  has  read  the  preceding  pages  relating  to  the  treatment 
of  women  before  romantic  love  existed,  and  compares  it  with 
their  treatment  at  present,  can  fail  to  recognize  the  wonder- 
ful transformation  brought  about  by  gallantry  and  self-sacri- 
fice— altruistic  habits  which  have  changed  men  from  ruffians 
to  gentlemen.  I  do  not  say  that  love  alone  is  responsible  for 
this  improvement,  but  it  has  been  one  of  the  most  potent  fac- 
tors. Finally,  there  is  affection,  which,  in  conjunction  with 
the  other  altruistic  ingredients  of  love,  has  changed  it  from 
an  appetite  like  that  of  a  fly  for  sugar  to  a  self -oblivious 
devotion  like  a  mother's  for  her  child,  thus  raising  it  to  the 
highest  ethical  rank  as  an  agency  of  culture. 

We  are 'still  very  far  from  the  final  stage  in  the  evolution 
of  love.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  will  continue  to 
develop,  as  in  the  past,  in  the  direction  of  the  esthetic,  super- 
sensual,  and  altruistic.  As  a  physician's  eye  becomes  trained 


UTILITY    AND   FUTURE   OF   LOVE  823 

for  the  subtle  diagnosis  of  disease,  a  clergyman's  for  the 
diagnosis  of  moral  evil,  so  will  the  love-instinct  become  more 
and  more  expert,  critical,  and  refined,  rejecting  those  who 
are  vicious  or  diseased.  Compare  the  lustrous  eyes  of  a  con- 
sumptive girl  with  the  sparkling  eyes  of  a  healthy  maiden  in 
buoyant  spirits.  Both  are  beautiful,  but  to  a  doctor,  or  to 
anyone  else  who  knows  the  deadliness  and  horrors  of  tuber- 
culosis, the  beauty  of  the  consumptive  girl's  eyes  will  seem 
uncanny,  like  the  charm  of  a  snake,  and  it  will  inspire  pity, 
which  in  this  case  is  not  akin  to  love,  but  fatal  to.it.  Thus 
may  superior  knowledge  influence  our  sense  of  beauty  and 
liability  to  fall  in  love.  I  know  a  man  who  was  in  love  with 
a  girl  and  had  made  up  his  mind  to  propose.  He  went  to 
call  on  her,  and  as  he  approached  the  door  he  heard  her 
abusing  her  mother  in  the  most  heartless  manner.  He  did 
not  ring  the  bell,  and  never  called  again.  His  love  was  of 
the  highest  type,  but  he  suppressed  his  feelings. 

More  important  than  the  further  improvement  of  romantic 
love  is  the  task  of  increasing  the  proportion  of  men  and  women 
who  will  be  capable  of  experiencing  it  as  now  known  to  us. 
The  vast  majority  are  still  strangers  to  anything  beyond 
primitive  love.  The  analysis  made  in  the  present  volume  will 
enable  all  persons  who  fancy  themselves  in  love  to  see  whether 
their  passion  is  merely  self-love  in  a  roundabout  way  or  true 
romantic  affection  for  another.  They  can  see  whether  it  is 
mere  selfish  liking,  attachment,  or  fondness,  or  else  unselfish 
affection.  If  adoration,  purity,  sympathy,  and  the  altruistic 
impulses  of  gallantry  and  self-sacrifice  are  lacking,  they  can 
be  cultivated  by  deliberate  exercise  : 

Assume  a  virtue,  if  you  have  it  not. 

That  monster,  custom,  who  all  sense  doth  eat, 

Of  hahits  devil,  is  angel  yet  in  this. 

The  affections  can  be  trained  as  well  as  the  muscles  ;  and  thus 
the  lesson  taught  in  this  book  may  help  to  bring  about  a  new 
era  of  unselfish  devotion  and  true  love.  No  man,  surely, 
can  read  the  foregoing  disclosures  regarding  man's  primitive 
coarseness  and  heartlessness  without  feeling  ashamed  for  his 


824  UTILITY    AND    FUTURE    OF   LOVE 

sex  and  resolving  to  be  an  unselfish  lover  and  husband  to 
the  end  of  his  life. 

A  great,  mistake  was  made  by  the  Greeks  when  they  dis- 
tinguished celestial  from  earthly  love.  The  distinction  itself 
was  all  right,  but  their  application  of  it  was  all  wrong.  Had 
they  known  romantic  love  as  we  know  it,  they  could  not  have 
made  the  grievous 'blunder  of  calling  the  love  between  men 
and  women  worldly,  reserving  the  word  celestial  for  the 
friendship  between  men.  Equally  mistaken  were  those 
mediaeval  .sages  who  taught  that  the  celestial  sexual  virtues 
are  celibacy  and  virginity — a  doctrine  which,  if  adopted, 
would  involve  the  suicide  of  the  human  race,  and  thus  stands 
self-condemned.  No,  celestial  love  is  not  asceticism  ;  it  is  al- 
truism. Eomantic  love  is  celestial,  for  it  is  altruistic,  yet  it 
does  not  preach  contempt  of  the  body,  and  its  goal  is  mar- 
riage, the  chief  pillar  of  civilization.  The  admiration  of  a 
beautiful,  well-rounded,  healthy  body  is  as  legitimate  and 
laudable  an  ingredient  of  romantic  love  as  the  admiration  of 
that  mental  beauty  which  distinguishes  it  from  sensual  love. 
It  is  not  only  that  the  lovers  themselves  are  entitled  to  part- 
ners with  healthy,  attractive  bodies  ;  it  is  a  duty  they  owe  to 
the  next  generation  not  to  marry  anyone  who  is  likely  to 
transmit  bodily  or  mental  infirmities  to  the  next  generation. 
It  is  quite  as  reprehensible  to  marry  for  spiritual  reasons 
alone  as  to  be  guided  only  by  physical  charms. 

Love  is  nature's  radical  remedy  for  disease,  whereas  mar- 
riage, as  practised  in  the  past,  and  too'  often  in  the  present, 
is  little  more  than  a  legalized  crime.  "  One  of  the  last 
tilings  that  occur  to  a  marrying  couple  is  whether  they  are  fit 
to  be  represented  in  posterity,"  writes  Dr.  Harry  Campbell 
(Lancet,  1898).  "Theft  and  murder  are  considered  the 
blackest  of  crimes,  but  neither  the  law  nor  the  church  has 
raised  its  voice  against  the  marriage  of  the  unfit,  for  neither 
has  realized  that  worse  than  theft  and  well-nigh  as  bad  as 
murder  is  the  bringing  into  the  world,  through  disregard  of 
parental  fitness,  of  individuals  full  of  disease-tendencies." 
On  this  point  the  public  conscience  needs  a  thorough  rousing. 
If  a  mother  deliberately  gave  her  daughter  a  draught  which 


UTILITY   AND    FUTURE   OF   LOVE  825 

made  her  a  cripple,  or  an  invalid,  or  an  imbecile,  or  tubercu- 
lous, everybody  would  cry  out  with  horror,  and  she  would  be- 
come a  social  outcast.  But  if  she  inflicts  these  injuries  on  her 
granddaughter,  by  marrying  her  daughter  to  a  drunkard,  in 
the  hope  of  reforming  him,  or  to  a  wealthy  degenerate,  or  an 
imbecile  baron,  no  one  says  a  word,  provided  the  marriage 
law  has  been  complied  with. 

It  is  owing  to  these  persistent  crimes  against  grandchildren 
that  the  human  race  as  a  whole  is  still  such  a  miserable 
rabble,  and  that  recruiting  offices  and  insurances  companies 
tell  such  startling  tales  of  degeneracy.  Love  would  cure  this, 
if  there  were  more  of  the  right  kind.  Until  there  is,  much 
good  may  be  done  by  accepting  it  as  a  guide,  and  building 
up  a  sentiment  in  favor  of  its  instinctive  object  and  ideal. 
I  have  described  in  one  chapter  the  obstacles  which  retarded 
the  growth  of  love,  and  in  another  I  have  shown  how  senti- 
ments change  and  grow.  Most  of  those  obstacles  are  being 
gradually  removed,  and  public  opinion  is  slowly  but  surely 
changing  in  favor  of  love.  Building  up  a  new  sentiment 
is  a  slow  process.  At  first  it  may  be  a  mere  hut  for  a  hermit 
thinker,  but  gradually  it  becomes  larger  and  larger  as  thou- 
sands add  their  mite  to  the  building  fund,  until  at  last  it 
stands  as  a  sublime  cathedral  admonishing  all  to  do  their 
duty.  When  the  Cathedral  of  Love  is  finished  the  horror 
of  disease  and  vice  will  have  become  as  absolute  a  bar  to 
marriage  as  the  horror  of  incest  is  now  ;  and  it  will  be  ac- 
knowledged that  the  only  true  marriage  of  reason  is  a  mar- 
riage of  love. 


BIBLIOGKAPHY  AND  INDEX   OF  AUTHOES. 


The  figures  refer  to  pages  in  this  book.     See  Preface. 


Abel,  C.,  Ueber  den  Begriff  der 
Liebe  in  einigeu  alten  und  neuen 
Spracheu.  Hamburg  ;  217,  219, 
710. 

v  Abercromby,  J. ,  Folk-Lore.   Lon- 
don, 1890 ;  124. 

Abrahams,  Israel,  Jewish  Life  in 
the  Middle  Ages  ;  728. 

Achilles    Tatius,    137,     139,    144, 

146,  787,  808. 

^  Acosta,  Jos.  d',  Natural  and  Moral 
History  of  the  Indies  ;  237. 

Adair,  J.,  History  of  the  Ameri- 
can Indians.  London,  1775  ;  235, 
313,  316,  568. 

^Eschylus,  757-760. 
^Agassiz,  L.  and  Mrs.,  A  Journey 
in    Brazil.     Boston,    1868;    60, 
161,  252. 

Alberti,  J.  C.,  Die  Kaffern  ;  373, 
379. 

Alhertis.  L.  M.  D.,  New  Guinea; 
255. 

American  Anthropologist. 

Anacreon,  73,  142,  145,  756. 

Anderson,  J.  W.,  Travel  in  Fiji 
and  New  Caledonia.  London, 
1880;  246. 

Anderssou,  C.  J.,  The  Okavango 
River.  London,  1861  ;  Lake 
Ngami.  London,  1856  ;  158,  275, 
367. 

Angas,  G.  F.,  Savage  Life  and 
Scenes  in  Australia  and  New 
Zealand.  London,  1850  ;  233, 
240,  432,  464,  541. 


Authon,  C. ,  Classical  Dictionary  ; 

756,  789,  809. 
Anthropological  Institute  of  Great 

Britain,  Journal  of. 
Anthropologische        Gesellschaft. 

Ber.  Wien,  1887. 
Anthropological  Society,  Journal, 

London. 

Antimachus,  791,  792. 
Antoninus  Liberalis,  803. 
Apollonius  Rhodius,  786,  796-799. 
Apuleius,  733,  811,  813. 
Aristophanes,  757,  792. 
Aristotle,  295,  778,  779,  780. 
Armstrong-Hopkins,    Within    the 

Purdah.    N.  Y.,  1899  ;  653,  655. 
Ashe,  Thomas,  Travels  in  America 

in  1806  ;  545,  569. 
Athenreus,    Deipnosophistse ;    116, 

777,  801. 
Azara,  F.  de,  Voyage  dans  1'Amer- 

ique  meridionale  ;  600,  602. 

Bacon,  146,  148. 

Bain,  A.,  The  Emotions  and  the 

Will  ;  146,  281,  753. 
Baker,  S.  W.,  The  Albert  N'yanza ; 

Nile  Tributaries  of   Abyssinia  ; 

35,  37,  67, 101,  173,  292,  294,  309, 

311,388. 
Bal four,  E.,  Cyclopaedia  of  India  ; 

665. 

Ball,  G.,  Things  Chinese  ;  194,  227. 
Bancroft,  H.  H.,  Native  Races  of 

the    Pacific    States    of    North 

America.     N.  Y.,  1875  ;  40,  88, 


827 


828     BIBLIOGRAPHY    AND   INDEX   OF   AUTHORS 


111,  112,  159,  177,  234,  242,  251, 
266,  269,  271,  274,  277,  313,  321, 
564,  565,  566,  567,  574,  575,  576, 
577,  596,  598,  604,  617. 

Baudelier,  A.  F.  A.,  Peabody 
Museum  Reports,  Vol.  II.  ;  560, 
567,  586,  601. 

Barrin gton,  G.,  History  of  New 
South  Wales  ;  259,  448,  469,  471. 

Barrow,  J.,  Travels  into  the  In- 
terior of  Southern  Africa  ;  270, 
357,  359,  364,  36&,  371,  377. 

Bastian,  A.,  Culturlauder  des  alten 
Amerika  ;  San  Salvador  ;  Der 
Mensch  in  der  Geschichte  ;  Afri- 
kanische  Reisen  ;  45,  236,  237, 
242,  403. 

Bates,  H.  W.,  The  Naturalist  on 
the  River  Amazons  ;  160,  634. 

Baumann,  O.,  Berichte  d.  An- 
throp.  Ges.  Wien,  1887  ;  233. 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  139,  148. 

Becker,  W.  A.  and  Goll,  Charikles, 
1877  ;  151, 178,  188,  780,  782. 

Beecham,  J.,  Ashantee  and  the 
Gold  Coast ;  339. 

Belden,  G.  P.,  Twelve  Years 
Among  the  Indians  of  the 
Plains;  57,  76,  234,  268,  572, 
579,  607,  614. 

Benecke,  Antimachus  of  Colo- 
phon ;  18,  217,  746,  756,  785, 
791,  792. 

Berdoe,  E.  Browning,  Cyclopae- 
dia ;  221. 

Bernau,  Missionary  Labors  in 
British  Guinea ;  275. 

Bhavabhuti,  Malati  and  Madha- 
va  ;  695,  699,  700. 

Bille,  Steen  A.,  Reise  der  Corvette 
Galatliea  um  die  Welt  ;  524. 

Bird-Bishop,  Isabella,  Six  Months 
in*  the  Hawaiian  Archipelago; 
Journey  in  Persia;  214,  225, 
522,  524. 

Bleek,  W.  H.  J.,  Reinecke  Fuchs 
in  Af  rika  ;  355,  398. 


Boas,  F.,  Internal.  Archivfiir  Eth- 
nographic 1896 ;  Jour.  Amer. 
Folk-Lore  Soc.,  1888  ;  Zeitschrift 
fiir  Etlmol.  1891-92  ;  Smithson- 
ian Report,  1895  ;  241,  261,  556, 
563,  594,  626,  633,  809. 

Bock,  C.,  Temples  and  Elephants; 
Head-hunters  of  Borneo  ;  233, 
262,  269,  310,  331,  481. 

Boehtlingk,  O.,  Sakuntala ;  679, 
700,  702. 

Bon  wick,  C.,  Daily  Life  and  Or- 
igin of  the  Tasmanians  ;  92, 
238,  311,  425,  449,  454,  460. 

Bosnian,  W. ,  Coast  of  Guinea ; 
173. 

Bougainville,  L.  A.,  de,  Yoyage, 
an  tour  du  Monde,  1771  ;  505. 

Bourke,  J.  D.,  Snake  Dance  of 
the  Moquis  of  Arizona ;  210 
235. 

Bourne,  B.  F.,  The  Captive  in 
Patagonia;  98,  246,  275,  566, 
615. 

Bove,  G.,  Patagonia ;  98,  601. 

Brandes,  G.,  Hauptstromungen  in 
der  Litteratur  des  19  Jahrhun- 
derts  ;  10. 

Brett,  W.  H.,  Indian  Tribes  of 
Guiana;  158,  565,  587. 

Brinton,  D.  G.,  Myths  of  the  New 
World  ;  Races  and  Peoples  ;  The 
American  Race  ;  The  Religious 
Sentiment  ;  Essays  of  an  A  meri- 
canist ;  26,  48,  363,  545,  556,557, 
559,  56i,  565,  566,  567,  570,  573; 
583,  589,  598,  599,  622-625,  636, 
637. 

Brooke,  C.,  Ten  Years  in  Sara- 
wak ;  29,  482,  486. 

Brooke,  Stopford,  708. 

Brown,  Wm.,  New  Zealand  and 
Its  Aborigines  ;  540,  542,  543, 
544. 

Browning,  Robert,  221. 

Bruce,  James,  Travels  to  Discover 
the  Sources  of  the  Nile  ;  406. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND   INDEX   OF   AUTHORS     829 


Buchanan,  J.,  History,  Manners, 
and  Customs  of  North  American 
Indians  ;  309,  564. 

Buchner,  Reise  durch  den  Stillen 
Ocean  ;  38. 

Buckley,  Wm.  (See  John  Mor- 
gan.) 

Buhner,  in  Brough  Smyth  ;  245, 
256,  264,  326,  421,  446,  466. 

Burchell,  W.  J.,  Travels  in  the  In- 
terior of  Southern  Africa ;  337, 
338,  359. 

Burckhardt,  J.  L.,  Bedouins  and 
Wahabys  ;  Reise  in  Nubien  ; 
122,  187,  297,  330^  331,  333. 

Bureau  Ethnology  Reports,  Wash- 
ington. 

Burton,  R.  F.,  Two  Trips  to  Go- 
rilla Land;  Abeokuta;  City  of 
the  Saints  ;  First  Footsteps  in 
Africa  ;  Highlands  of  Brazil ; 
Lake  Regions  of  Central  Africa  ; 
Wit  and  Wisdom  from  West  Af- 
rica ;  35,  60,  90,  112,  166,  199, 
237,  244,  275,  313,  331,  387,  401, 
410,  411,  563,  572,  580,588,  611, 
616,  699. 

Burton,  Robert,  Anatomy  of  Mel- 
ancholy;  3,  68,  146,  152,  203, 
204,  229,  295,  361. 

Byron,  71,  221,  753. 

Caillie,  R. ,  Travels  Through  Cen- 
tral Africa  ;  101,  182. 

Callaway,  Nursery  Tales  of  the 
Zulus;  375,  381,  398. 

Callimachus,  131,  152,  786,  790, 
795-796,  800. 

Cameron,  V.  L.,  Across  Africa; 
90  271. 

Campbell,  J.,  Wild  Tribes  of 
Khomlistan;  24,  31,  236. 

Carver,  J.,  Travels  Through  the 
Interior  Parts  of  North  Amer- 
ica;  174,257. 

Catliu,  G.,  Manners,  Customs  and 
Condition  of  North  American 


Indians;  55,100,312,  545,  557, 
561,  563,  565,  578,  579,  580,  585, 
590,  597,  598,  605,  632. 

Catullus,  787,  790,  801,  802. 

Chamberlain,  B-  H. ,  Things  Jap- 
anese, 1898  ;  169,  172,  227,  253. 

Chapman,  J.,  Travels  in  the  Inte- 
rior of  South  Africa  ;  23,  350, 
354,  355,  356,  357-361. 

Charlevoix,  P.,  A  Voyage  to  North 
America.  London,  1761  ;  88, 
170,  177,  559,  585,  590. 

Chavanne,  J. ,  Die  Sahara ;  187, 413. 

Cheever,  H.  T.,  Life  in  the  Sand- 
wich  Islands  ;  527,  529. 

Christ,  W.,  Griechische  Literatur- 
geschichte  ;  734,  764,  790,  805. 

Churchill,  Randolph,  Men,  Mines 
and  Minerals  in  South  Africa  ; 
309. 

Cieza,  P.  de,  Coronica  del  Peru  ; 
237,  567. 

Codrington,  R.  H.,  The  Melan- 
esia ns  ;  78,  497. 

Colenso,  Miss,  Humanitarian, 
1897  ;  100,  381. 

Columbus,  C.,  Hakluyt  Soc.  Publ., 
1847  ;  121,  560. 

Combes  et  Tamisier,  Voyage  en 
Abyssinie  ;  343,  407. 

Compiegne,  L'Afrique  equatori- 
al e  Gabon ais  ;  90. 

Cook,  James,  Voyages,  London> 
1842  ;  43,  60,  248,  276,  503,  505, 
507,  509,  511,  512,  514. 

Cooper,  306. 

Couat,  La  poesie  Alexandrine ; 
787,  795,  796,  799. 

Cozzens,  S.  W.,  The  Marvellous 
Country  ;  155,  275. 

Cranz,  D.,  History  of  Greenland  ; 
122,  123,  124,  237,  265,  274,  321, 
638,  639. 

Crawley,  Journ.  Anthr.  Inst. 
XXIV.  ;  170,  322,  490. 

Cremorny,  J.,  Life  Among  the 
Apaches ;  591. 


830     BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND   INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


Qudraka,  Vasantasena ;  664,  665- 
668,  703. 

Cunow,  Verwandschaftsorganisa- 
tionen  der  Australneger  ;  175, 
439. 

Curr,  E.  M.,  The  Australian  Race  ; 
84,  125,  2^7,  262,  416,  420,  421, 
423,  424,  425,  429,  430,  431,  432, 
433,  434,  443,  448,  450,  453,  454, 
455,  458,  459,  460,  464,  474,  476. 

Custer,  G.  A.,  My  Life  on  the 
Plains.  N.  Y.,  1874  ;  156.  633. 

Ball,  W.  H.,  Alaska  and  its  Re- 
sources ;  241. 

Dalton,  E.  T.,  Descriptive  Eth- 
nology of  Bengal  ;  24,  28,  31,  43, 
75,  128,  261,  642-646,  647-650, 
653,  705. 

Dalton,  G.,  History  of  British 
Guiana;  566. 

Danks,  B.,  Journ.  Anthrop.  Insti- 
tute ;  340. 

Darwin,  C.,  Descent  of  Man  ;  Ex- 
pression of  the  Emotions ;  Voy- 
age of  »the  Beagle  ;  48,  230,  232, 
241,  247,  272,  279,  335-338,  342, 
362,  440,  540,  588,  602,  655,  753. 

Dawson,  J.,  Australian  Aborigines; 
426,  434,  455. 

Dibble,  History  of  the  Sandwich 
Islands  ;  523. 

Diodorus,  185,  403. 

Dobrizhoffer,  M.,  An  Account  of 
the  Abipones  ;  235,  237,  259,  265, 
316,  331,  572,  587,  590,  602. 

Dodge,  R.  I.,  Our  Wild  Indians; 
99,  224,  556,  564,  598,  603,  612. 

Dorsey,  A.  O.,  Omaha  Sociology, 
Rep.  Bureau  Ethnol.  Washing- 
ton, 1881-82  ;  98,  234,  239,  594, 
604. 

Douglas,  R.  K.,  Society  in  China  ; 
120. 

Dowden,  E.,  Shakespere  :  a  Criti- 
cal Study  of  his  Mind  and  Art ; 
132,  134,  168. 


Dowson,  J.,  Classical  Dictionary 
of  Hindu  Mythology  ;  697. 

Drake,  8.  G.,  Indians  of  North 
America ;  101. 

Drummond,  H.,  Ascent  of  Man  ; 
14,  347. 

Dryden,  121,  135,  221,  229. 

Dubois,  J.  A.,  Character,  Man. 
uers,  and  Customs  of  the  People 
of  India,  1862  ;  24,  38,  117,  164, 
184,  185,  319,  653,  657,  659,  661, 
664,  702,  706. 

Du  Chaillu,  P.  B.,  Equatorial  Af- 
rica; Journey  to  Ashau go  Land; 
22,  91,  402.  0 

Duiilop,  History  of  Fiction  ;  809. 

Dupont,  E.,  Lettres  sur  le  Congo  ; 
314,  321. 

Earl,  G.  W.,  The  Papuans  ;  28, 
29,  341,  417. 

Eastman,  Mrs.  Mary  H. ,  Dacotah  ; 
or  Life  and  Legends  of  the  Sioux. 
N.  Y.,  1849  ;  187,  545,  572,  579, 
589,  590,  604,  606,  607,  608,  611, 
617,  630. 

Ebers,  G.,  Eine  Aegyptische  K6- 
nigstochter ;  Aegypten  in  Bild 
und  Wort ;  1,  185,  186,  694,  732, 
789,  805. 

Eckermann,  J.  P.,  Gesprache  mit 
Goethe ;  220,  285,  288,  810. 

Eckstein,  E.,  Magazin  ftir  die  Li- 
teratur  des  In-  und  Auslandes, 
1888  ;  204,  205,  281,  283,  806. 

Ehrcnreich,  P.,  Zeitschrift  fur 
Ethnologic,  1887  ;  557. 

Ellis,  A.  B. ,  Yoruba-Speaking 
Peoples;  Ewe-Speaking  Peoples 
of  the  Slave  Coast  of  West  Af- 
rica ;  396,  397. 

Ellis,  G.  E.,  The  Red  Man  and  the 
White  Man.  Boston,  1882  ;  578, 
633. 

Ellis,  Havelock,  Man  and  AVoman  ; 
66. 

Ellis,  W. ,  Polynesian  Researches  ; 


BIBLIOGRAPHY    AND    INDEX    OF   AUTHORS     831 


A  Tour  through  Hawaii  ;  His- 
tory of  Madagascar;  22,  31,33. 
90/236,240,  247,249,  251,  276, 
310,  505,  507,  508-509,  521,  541. 

Emerson,  145,  167,  220. 

Erman,  A.,  Egypt ;  25. 

Erskine,  J.  E.,  A  Cruise  among 
the  Islands  of  the  Western  Pa- 
cific ;  527. 

Ethnological  Society  of  London, 
Journal  of. 

Euripides,  95-97,  137,  178,  765- 
772,  779,  785,  786,  791,  792,  798. 

Eyre,  E.  J.,  Expeditions  of  Dis- 
covery into  Central  Australia  , 
258,  417,  419,  420,  424,  430,  442, 
443,  451,  452,  463,  465. 

Falkner,  T.,  Description  of  Pata- 
gonia. Hereford,  1774  ;  93,  162, 
182,  312,  566,  588,  601. 

Fancourt,  C.  St.  J.,  History  of 
Yucatan,  235. 

Feldner,  W.,  Ileisen  durch  Bra- 
silien  ;  557. 

Fiuck,  H.  T.,  Romantic  Love  and 
Personal  Beauty.  New  York, 
1887  ;  Lotos-Time  in  Japan  ;  2- 
3,  8, 12-15,  16,  17,  18-19,  38,  68, 
166,  189,  190,  201 ,  230,  245,  289, 
618,  733,  801,  820. 

Finsch,  O.,  Reise  in  die  Slid  see  ; 
Zeitschr.  fttr  Ethnol.,  Vol.  XII., 
1880  ;  350. 

Fischer,  F.  C.,  Ueber  die  Probe- 
nachte  der  deutschen  Bauern- 
miidchen.  Leipzig,  1780  ;  79. 

Fiske,  A.  K.,  Myths  of  Israel; 
709. 

Fiske,  John,  Old  Virginia  and  Her 
Neighbors  ;  Discovery  of  Amer- 
ica ;  133,  177,  600,  632. 

Fison  and  Ilowitt,  Kamilaroi  and 
Kurnai;  31,  239,  432,  438. 

Fitzroy,  R.,  Narrative  of  the  Sur- 
veying Voyages  of  ....  Beagle  ; 
173,  588. 


Fleming,  F. ,  Southern  Africa  ;  362. 
Fletcher,      Miss     Alice,     Journal 

American  Folk-Lore  Soc.,  1889  ; 

Memoirs  Internal.  Congress  of 

Anthropologists,  1894  ;  A  Study 

of  Omaha  Indian  Music,  1893  ; 

594,  604,  618. 
Flinders,    M.,   Voyage    to   Terra 

Australis,  London,  1814  ;  426. 
Folk-Lore,  London. 
Forbes,   F.  E.,  Dahomey  and  the 

Dahomans ;  244. 
Forsyth,  J.,  Highlands  of  Central 

India  ;  269. 
Franklin,  J.,  Journey  to  the  Shores 

of  the  Polar  Sea ;  237,  566,  581, 

589. 
Franklin,   William,  Magazin  von 

Reise beschreibuugen  ;  200. 
Frazer,  J.  G.,  Totemism ;  243, 255, 

258. 

Freeman,   E.    A.,   Norman    Con- 
quest of  England  ;  191. 
Fritsch,      G. ,    Die    Eirigeborenen 

Siid-Afrikas  ;  55,  68,   308,    354, 

358,  365,  367,  369,  372,  374,  375, 

378. 

Gal  ton,  F.,  Tropical  South  Africa  ; 
261,  270,  275,  285,  310,  328,  361, 
371. 

Garcia,  Origin  de  los  Indios  ;  175. 

Garcilasso  de  la  Vega,  Royal  Com- 
mentaries of  the  Incas  ;  47,  237, 
601. 

Gardiner,  A.  F.,  A  Journey  to  the 
Zoolu  Country  ;  277,  380. 

Gason,  S.  (in  Woods's  Native 
Tribes  of  South  Australia) ;  462. 

Gatschet,  A.  S.,  U.  S.  Geol.  and 
Geogr.  Survey  Rock}r  Mt.  Re- 
gion, Vol.  II.  Pt.  L,  on  Kla- 
math  Indians  ;  558,  624. 

Gaulier,  Th.,  Mile,  de  Maupin  ;  8, 
267. 

Gercke,  A.,  Griechische  Litera 
tur-Geschichte ;  793. 


832     BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND    INDEX   OF   AUTHORS 


Gerland.    (See  Waitz-Gerland.) 

Gerstaecker,  F.  Reisen  um  Die 
Welt,  IV. ;  472. 

Gibbs,  G.,  U.'  S.  Geogrup.  and 
Geol.  Survey  of  Rocky  Mt. 
Region,  Vol.  I ;  55,  99,  150,  556, 
562,  575,  598,  609,  634. 

Gill,  W.  VV.,  Life  iii  the  Southern 
Isles  ;  Savage  Life  in  Polynesia  ; 
39,  110,  208,  278,  495. 

Giraud-Teulon,  A.,  Les  Origines 
de  la  Famille  ;  82,  175. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  Studies  in 
Homer;  Homer  (in  Macmillan's 
Literature  Primers)  ;  735-740, 
748,  750,  780. 

Globus. 

Goethe,  133,  145,  168,  208,  209, 
210,  218,  220,  228,  285,  764,  809. 

Goldsmith,  8,  121. 

Goncourts,  Journal  des  ;  227,  302. 

Gordon,  Arthur,  Trans.  Ninth 
Intern.  Congr.  of  Orientalists, 
Vol.  II.  London,  1894  :  on  Fijian 
Poetry  ;  110,  494. 

Grant,  C.  T.  C.,  A  Town  Amongst 
the  Dyaks  of  Sarawak  ;  482. 

Graves,  E.  A.  Indian  Commiss. 
Report,  1854  ;  576. 

Grey,  G.,  Two  Expeditions  of  Dis- 
covery in  N.  Western  and  Wes- 
tern Australia  ;  418,  429,  433, 
445,  446,  447,  449,  451,  462. 

Grey,  Sir  George,  Polynesian 
Mythology;  528-536. 

Griffis,  W.  E.,  The  Mikado's  Em- 
pire ;  The  Lily  Among  Thorns  ; 
103,  726.  728,  729-730. 

Grinnell,  G.  B.,  Blackfoot  Lodge 
Tales  ;  581,  590,  598,  599,  604, 
612,  614,  628,  631. 

Grosse,  E.,  The  Beginnings  of 
Art ;  Die  Formen  der  Familie ; 
122,  124,  175,  176,  177,  231,  245, 
258,  264,  265,  330,  439,  446,  466. 

Grout,  L.,  Zululand  ;  377,  380, 
381. 


Haddon,  A.    C.,  Journal   Anthro- 

pol.,  Inst.,  1889  ;  476-480. 
Hafiz,  139. 
Halm,  Theophilus,   Globus  ;  360, 

362,  364,  367,  369,  370. 
Hakluyt's    Collections     of    Early 

Voyages.     London,  1810;  5<J7. 
Hala,    Scptacatakam  ,     280,    668, 

677,  697,  699. 
Hale    Horatio,    Journ.    An  thro  p. 

Instil.  ;  573,  576,  588. 
Hall,  C.  F.,  Arctic  Researches  and 

Life    among    the    Esquimaux ; 

637,  638,  639. 

Hartmann,  R.,  DieNigritier  ;  397. 
Hawkesworth,  J.,  Voyages  in  the 

Southern  Hemisphere  ;  60,  276, 

505,  506,  507,  542,  544. 
Hayes,  I.  I.,  The  Open  Polar  Sea  ; 

123. 
Hearn,    Lafcadio,     Gleanings    in 

Buddha-Fields  ;  149. 
Hearne,    S.,     A     Journey     from 

Prince  of   Wales's   Fort   to  the 

Northern  Ocean  ;  89,   103,   246, 

337,  566,  581,  599,  638. 
Heckewelder,  J.,   Transactions  of 

American  Philosoph.  Soc.,  Phil- 
adelphia, 1819  ;  573,  584,  609. 
Hegel,    G.    W.     F.,    Vorlesungen 

iiber  die  Aesthetik  ;    4,  15,  733, 

756,  817. 

Heine,  H.,  142,  143,226. 
Helbig,  W.,  Campanieche  Wand- 

malerei  ;  789,  792,  800. 
Heliodorus,  787,  807. 
Hellwald,  F.  v.,  Die  Menschliche 

Familie;    38,  39,  48,  199,   293, 

430. 
Heriot,    G.,    Travels  Through  the 

Canadas.  London,  1807  ;  76,  111, 

244,  635. 

Herodotus,  94,  184,  185,  248. 
Herrera,  Antonio  de,  Historia  Gen- 
eral ;  89,  177,  565. 
Hirschig,  G.  A.,  Scriptores  Erotici 

Gnicci  ;  806. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND   INDEX   OF   AUTHORS     833 


Ilossli,  H.,  The  Unreliability  of 
External  Signs  as  Indications  of 
Sex  in  Body  and  Mind  ;  756. 

Hoffmann,  W.  J.,  U.  S.  Geol.and 
Geogr.  Survey  of  Colorado, 
1876";  591,  611. 

llolden,  W.  C.,  Past  and  Future 
of  the  Kaffir  Races;  336,  372, 
375. 

Holub,  E.,  Seven  Years  in  South 
Africa  ;  90,  242,  255. 

Homer,  6,  73,  114,  332,  733,  734, 
736-750,  781,  785,  786,  798. 

Hommel,  F.,  Geschichte  Babylo- 
nieus  und  Assyriens  ;  184. 

Hopkins,  S.  H.,  Life  Among  the 
Piutes ;  613. 

Ilorwicz,  A.,  Naturgeschichte  der 
Gefiihle;  219. 

Hotten,  J.  C.,  Abyssinia  ;  406. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  303,  304. 

Hewitt,  A.  W.  (see  also  Fison  and 
Howitt)  Journ.  Anthrop.  Inst., 
Vol.  XX. ;  243,  247,  431,  432, 
438,  441,  449,  453,  459,  462,  473. 

Hue,  E.  R.,  Travels  in  Tartary, 
Thibet,  and  China;  171. 

Humboldt,  A.  v.,  Cosmos  ;  Trav- 
els to  the  Equinoctial  Regions  of 
the  New  Continent ;  Political 
Essay  on  the  Kingdom  of  New 
Spain  ;  21,  40,  59,  272,  278,  350, 
586. 

Hunter,  J.  D.,  Manners  and  Cus- 
toms of  Some  Indian  Tribes  ;  56, 
100,  315,  564,  589. 

Hutchiusou,  T.  J.,  Ten  Years' 
Wanderings  Among  the  Ethio- 
pians ;  216,  277,  414. 

Ilyades,  P.,  Mission  Scientifique 
du  Cap  Horn  ;  601. 

I  in  Thurn,  E.  F.,  Among  the  Ind- 
ians of  Guiana  ;  245,  253. 

Irving,  J.  T.,  Indian  Sketches ; 
316. 

Irving,  Washington,  Astoria;  235. 


Jackman,   Wm.,    The    Australian 

Captive.     Auburn,    1853;    426, 

454,  463. 

Jackson,  Helen  Hunt,  561. 
Jacobowski,  Globus,  Vol.  70  ;  363- 

365,  370. 
Jacolliot,    L.,    La    Femme    dans 

1'lnde  ;  664. 
James,  Wm.,  The  Nation,  N.  Y., 

September  22,  1887  ;  6,  783. 
Japan,  Asiatic  Society  of,  Trans- 
actions. 
Jesuit  Relations,  56,  60,  156,  175, 

234,  583. 
Johnston,  C.,  Southern  Abyssinia  ; 

113. 
Johnston,  H.  H.,  The Kilima-njaro 

Expedition  ;  The  River  Congo  ; 

British  Central  Africa ;  384-386, 

392-394. 

Johnston,   J.,    Missionary    Land- 
scapes in  the  Dark  Continent ; 

394. 
Jones,    C.  C.,   Antiquities  of  the 

Southern  Indians;  323,  565. 
Jones,  Rev.  Peter,  History  of  the 

Ojebway    Indians;     101,    326, 

611. 
Jowett,    B.,    The     Dialogues    of 

Plato;  807. 
Jung,  K.  E.,  DerWelttheil  Austra- 

lien ;  315,  464. 

Kalakaua,     King,     Legends    and 

Myths  of  Hawaii ;  516-519,  520, 

524,  525. 
Kalidasa,        Sakuntala,      Urvasi, 

Malavika    and   Agnimitra  ;     61, 

164,  202,  226,  677,  699,  700,  703, 

704,  705. 
Kama    Soutra,   or    Kamasutram ; 

184,  663,  694,  705,  809. 
Kane,  E.  K.,  Arctic  Explorations; 

123,  262,  617. 

Kay,  S.,  Caffraria  ;  373,  376. 
Keane,    A.     H.,     Journ.     Authr. 

lust.,  1883  ;  103. 


834     BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND   INDEX   OF   AUTHORS 


Keating,  W.  H.,  Expedition  to  the 

Source  of  St.  Peter's  River  ;  62, 

161,  581,  593,  602,  605,  607,  608, 

610,  634. 
Kenrick,  J.,  Ancient  Egypt  Under 

the  Pharaohs  ;  165,  185. 
King,  Captain  J.  S.,   Folk  'Lore 

Journal,  1888  ;  411. 
King,  W.  Ross,  Aboriginal  Tribes 

of  the  Nilgiri  Hills;  642. 
King  and  Fitzroy,  Voyages  of  the 

Adventure  and  Beagle ;  337. 
Koelle,  S.  W.,  African  Native  Lit- 
erature ;  398,  401. 
Kolben,  Peter,  Description  du  Cap 

de  Bonne  Esperance,  Paris,  1743  ; 

365,  366,  368,  370. 
Kotzebue,  O.,  New  Voyage  Round 

the  World  ;  88,  274. 
Krabbes,  Theodor,  Die  Frau  im 

altfranzosischeu  Karls-epos ;  118. 
Krafft-Ebing,  R.  v.,  Psychopathia 

Sexual  is    ;      Psychopathologie  ; 

223,  284,  301,  754. 
Krause,  A.,  Die  Tliukit  Indiauer  ; 

608. 
Kremer,  A.    v.,    Culturgeschichte 

'des  Orients  ;   298. 
Kronlein,      Wortschatz    der    Na- 

maqua  Hottentotten  ;   370. 
Kubary,    J.    S.,  Globus   XLVII.  ; 

500. 
Kuchler,   Trans.    Asiatic  Soc.   of 

Japan  ;  227. 

Lafitau,  J.  F.,  Moeurs  des  Savages 

Ameriquains ;  174, 177,  252,  559. 
Lamairesse,  E.,  Kama  Soutra;  662, 

663,  694,  698. 
Landa,  D.,  Ilelacion  de  las  cosas 

de  Yucatan;  253. 
Lander,  C.  and  J.,  Expedition  to 

Explore  the  Niger  ;  55, 136, 279. 
Landor,    A.    H.     Savage,    Alone 

Among  the  Hairy  Ainu  ;  294. 
Lane,  E.    W.,  Arabic   Society  in 

the  Middle  Ages  ;  Manners  and 


Customs  of  Modern  Egyptians  , 
103,  186. 

Lang,  Andrew,  Custom  and  Myth; 
Translations  of  Homer  and  The- 
ocritus ;  23,  48,  750,  795. 

Lathrop,  G.  P.,  4. 

Lavaysse,  M.,  Venezuela,  Trini- 
dad, etc. ;  40. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.,  History  of  Eu- 
ropean Morals  ;  743. 

Leigh,  W.  H.,  South  Australia: 
277,  424,  444,  448. 

Le  Jeune,  158,  160,  161,  557,  563, 
580. 

Leland,  C.  A.,  The  Algonquin 
Legends  of  New  England  ;  554, 
616. 

Leslie,  D.,  Among  the  Zulus  and 
Amatongas  ;  336,  378. 

Letourneau',  Ch.,  L'E volution  du 
Mariage  ;  44,  176,  313,  318,  333, 
343,  639,  727. 

Lewin,  T.  H.,  Wild  Races  of 
South-Eastern  India  ;  640,  642. 

Lewis  and  Clarke,  Travels  to  the 
Source  of  the  Missouri  River 
and  Across  the  Continent  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean  ;  43, 160,  275,  560, 
562,  577,  592. 

Library  of  Aboriginal  American 
Literature,  edited  by  D.  G.  Brin- 
ton. 

Lichteuberg,  G.  C.,  Schriften ; 
146,  528. 

Lichtenstein,  H.,  Travels  in  South 
Africa  ;  255,  355,  360,  361, 
373. 

Limburg-Brouwer,  Hist,  de  la 
Civilisation  des  Grecs  ;  778. 

Livingstone,  D.,  Missionary  Trav- 
els and  Researches  in  South 
Africa  ;  Expedition  to  the  Zam- 
besi ;  Last  Travels  ;  34,  35,  243, 
244,  356,  392,  403. 

Lobel,  D.  T..  Hochzeitsgebrauche 
der  Tiirken  ;  151. 

Longus,  787,  808-811. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY    AND   INDEX   OF   AUTHORS     835 


Loskicl,  G.  H.,  Geschichte  der 
Mission  der  evangelischen  Brti- 
der,  1789  ;  585,  609. 

Love -Affairs  of  Some  Famous 
Men  ;  166. 

Low,  Brooke,  Catalogue  of  the 
Brooke  Low  Collection  in  Bor- 
neo ;  264,481,483,484,487. 

Lowel,  J.  R.,  299. 

Lowrie,  J.  C.,  Two  Years  in  Upper 
India  ;  665. 

Lubbock,  Sir  J.,  The  Origin  of 
Civilization  and  the  Primitive 
Condition  of  Man  ;  125,  439. 

Lucian,  73,  129,  163,  801. 

Ltibke,  W.,  History  of  Art  ;  700. 

Lumholtz,  C.,  Among  Cannibals  ; 
28,  104,  120,  246,  255,  260,  325, 
423,  437,  443,  445,  450,  471. 

Lycurgus,  776,  777,  778. 

Lynd,  J.  W.,  Religion  of  the 
Dakotas,  in  Coll.  Minnesota  Hist. 
Soc.  II.  ;  238. 

Lytton,  Bulwer,  Essay  on  Love ; 
8,  765. 

Macaulay,   T.   B.,    Essay  on  Pe- 
trarch ;  8. 
MacDonald,  Duff,  Africana  ;  182, 

309,  385,  387. 
MacDonald,  Rev.  J.,  Journal  An- 

thropol.   Institution,  1890,  Vol. 

XX.  ;  375-376,  386. 
Macgillivray,  J.,    Voyage  of   the 

Rattlesnake;  430,  479. 
Mackenzie,  Alexander,  Voyages  to 

the  Frozen  and  Pacific  Oceans  ; 

88,  177,  251. 
Mackenzie,    Day  Dawn  in   Dark 

Places,  236. 
Macpherson,  S.  C.,  Rural  Bengal  ; 

646. 
M'Lean,   J.,   Twenty-Five  Years' 

Service  in     the   Hudson's   Buy 

Territory;    100,    203,   274,   317, 

560,  598,  634,  638. 
Magazin  von  Reisebeschreibungen. 


Mahaffy,  J.  P.,  Greek  Life  and 
Thought ;  152,  796,  799. 

Mallery,  G.,  Picture  Writing  of 
the  Indians.  Rep.  Bureau 
Ethnol.,  Wash.,  1882-83,  1888- 
89  ;  234,  235,  237,  239,  241,  243, 

244,  251,  252,  254,  255,  261,  262, 
265,  268. 

Man,  E.  H.,  Journ  Anthr.  Inst. 
Vol.  XII.;  240,  261. 

Mantegazza,  P.,  Geschlechtsver- 
haltnisse  des  Menschen ;  281, 
380. 

Manu,  Ordinances  of  ;  164,  184, 
334,  651,  658,  659,  701,  704. 

Mariner,  W.  (See  Martin,  J.) 

Markhain,  C.  R.,  Expedition  into 
the  Valley  of  the  Amazon  ;  275. 

Marryat,  F.,  Borneo  ;  481,  482. 

Marsden,  W.,  History  of  Sumatra; 
341. 

Martin,  J.,  An  Account  of  the 
Natives  of  the  Tonga  Islands 
Compiled  from  the  Communica- 
tions of  Mr.  William  Mariner  ; 
130,  235,  268,  340,  510,  514. 

Martin,  L.  A. r  La  Morale  chez  les 
Chinois  ;  227. 

Martius,  C.  F.  Ph.,  Beitrage  zur 
Ethnographic.  .  .  Brasiliens; 

245,  261,  314,  350,  565,  600. 
Martyr,  P.,  De  Orbe  Novo  ;  173. 
Mathew,     J.,     Jour,    and    Proc. 

Royal  Soc.  N.  S.  Wales,  Vol. 
XXIII.  ;  416,  429,  453. 

Mathews,  C.,  Indian  Fairy  Book  ; 
628. 

Mayne,  R.  C..  Four  Years  in  Brit- 
ish Columbia;  274,  275. 

McClintock  and  Strong,  Cyclopae- 
dia of  Biblical  .  .  .  Literature ; 
229,  710,  728,  729. 

McCulloh,  J.  H.,  Researches, 
Philosophical  and  Antiquarian, 
Baltimore,  1829  ;  565,  567. 

McLennan,  J.  F. ,  Studies  in  An- 
cient History  ;  175,  347,  430. 


836     BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND    INDEX   OF   AUTHORS 


Meleager,  94,  146,  803. 

Menaiider,  782,  785,  786,  792. 

Meyer,  H.  E.  A.,  in  Woods'  Na- 
tive Tribes  of  South  Australia  ; 
120,  418,  419,  426,  430,  431,  445, 
451,  461,  468. 

Miller,  Joaquin,  Life  Among  the 
Modocs;  190,  571,  625. 

Milman,  H.  H.,  History  of  the 
Jews ;  History  of  Latin  Chris- 
tianity ;  50,  351. 

Mitchell,  T.  L,  Three  Expeditions 
into  the  Interior  of  Eastern  Aus- 
tralia ;  240,  416,  428,  449,  462. 

Moffat,  R.,  Missionary  Labors  and 
Scenes  in  Southern  Africa  ;  331, 
355,  356,  357,  360,  362. 

Moll,  A.,  Die  Coritrare  Sexual- 
empfindung  ;  Untersuchungen 
iiber  die  Libido  Sexualis  ;  16, 
223,  358,  754,  755. 

Moucaut,  Cenac,  Histoire  de 
1' Amour  ;  708. 

Monteiro,  J.  J.,  Angola  and  the 
River  Congo  ;  155,  389. 

Moore,  T.,  Marriage  Customs  .  .  . 
of  Various  Nations  ;  111. 

Morgan,  L.  H.,  League  of  the 
Iroquois ;  Ancient  Society  ;  17, 
86,  177,  183,  188,  262,  325,  344, 
347,  559,  582,  599,  616,  635. 

Miiller,  C.  O.,  History  and  Antiq- 
uities of  the  Doric  Race  ;  773, 
777,  779. 

Muller,  F.,  Allgemeine  Ethnogra- 
phic; 426,  430. 

Muller,  F.  Max,  India,  What  can  it 
Teach  Us  ?  700. 

Muir,  John,  The  Mountains  of 
California;  275,  574. 

Mundy,  Rodney,  Narrative  of 
Events  in  Borneo  and  Celebes; 
482,  485. 

Munzinger,  W.,  Ostafrikanische 
Studien ;  388,  403-407. 

Murdoch,  J. ,  Rep.  Bureau  Ethnol., 
Wash.,  1887-1888;  237,  251. 


Murr,  C.  G.,  Nachrichten  von  ver- 

schiedenen  Landern  des    Spau- 

ischen  Amerika  ;  593. 
Murray,  G.  G.  A. ,  History  of  An^ 

cient  Greek  Literature;  754,  791, 

796,  809. 
Musaeus,  811. 
Musters,  G.  C.,  At  Home  with  the 

Patagonians ;  233,  601. 

Nansen,  F.,  The  First  Crossing  of 

Greenland  ;  123, 135. 
Napier,     E.    E.,     Excursions    in 

Southern  Africa ;  364. 
Neill,  E.  D.,  Dacotah  Land  ;  275, 

580,589,  608. 
Niblack,  A.  P.,  Coast  Indians  of 

South    Alaska,  in    Smithsonian 

Rep.,  1888;  89. 
Niebuhr,   C.,  Travels  in  Arabia; 

187. 

Nonnus,  Dionysiaka  ;  73,  808. 
Norman,  Henry,  Peoples  and  Poli- 
tics of  the  Far  East ;  159. 

Oliphant,  L.,  Minnesota;  606. 
Ovid,  140/143,  152,  189,  191,  787, 

790,  795,  801,  803,  805,  812. 
Oviedo,  G.  F.,  Historia  de  las  In- 

dias ;  237,  565. 

Pallas,  P.  S.,  Reise  durch  ver- 
schiedene  Provinzen  des  rus- 
sischen  Reichs ;  154. 

Palmer,  Geo.  H.,  Trans.  Odyssey  ; 
750. 

Park,  Mungo,  Travels  in  the  In- 
terior of  Africa ;  182,  280,  285, 
403. 

Parker,  R.  Langloh,  Australian 
Legefldary  Tales  ;  467. 

Parkman,  F..  California  and  Ore- 
gon  Trail ;  Jesuits  in  N.  Amer 
ica  ;  36,  156,  161,  162,  555,  559, 
561,  563,  568,  582,  617. 

Parkyns,  M.,  Life  in  Abyssinia  ; 
405,  406,  408. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY    AND    INDEX    OF   AUTHORS     837 


Parthenius,  805. 

Pa'uhtschke,  P.,  Beitrage  zur  Eth- 
nographic u.  Anthrop.  der  So- 
mali, Galla  u.  Harari  ,  Ethno- 
graphie  Nordost  Afrikas  ;  101, 
246,  321,  408-412. 

Pausanias,  Description  of  Greece  ; 
115,  196. 

Peabody  Museum  Reports. 

Petlierick,  J.,  Egypt,  the  Soudan, 
and  Central  Africa ;  92. 

Pfeiffer,  Ida,  Heine  Zweite  Welt- 
reise  ;  A  Lady's  Voyage  Round 
the  World  ;  103,  225,  663. 

Philip,  J.,  Researches  in  South 
Africa  ;  366. 

Phillip,  A.,  Voyage  to  Botany 
Bay,  1789  ;  426. 

Plato,  49,  162,  178,  228,  384,  772- 

776,  778,780,791,  819. 
Plautus,  793. 

Ploss-Bartels,  Das  Weib  in  der  Na- 
tur-und  Volkerkunder.  Fourth 
edition,  1895  ;  40,  44,  55,  88, 130, 
144,  170,  171,  186, 193,  272,  293, 
294,  313,  318,  334,  380,  600,  601, 
662. 

Plutarch,  152,  163,  178,  228,  330, 

777,  778,  780,  790,  792,  806. 
Polak,  J.  E.,   Persien,    dus   Land 

und  seine  Bewohner,  199,  297. 

Polo,  Marco,  Marvels  of  the  East  ; 
91. 

Powers,  S.,  Tribes  of  California, 
in  U.  S.  Geogr.  and  Geol.  Sur- 
vey Rocky  Mt.  Region,  1877  ; 
21,  76,  83,  84,  92,  98  159,  162, 
252,  282,  323,  556,  558.  568,  572, 
573,  574,  575,  597,  600,  613,  623, 
628,  629. 

Pizarro,  P.,  Relaciones  .  .  . 
los  Reynos  del  Peni  ;  567. 

Pratt,  R.  H.,  U.  S.  Geol.  and 
Geog.  Survey  Rocky  Mt.  ;  112. 

Properlius,  144,  787,  790,  801, 
802. 


Rattles,  T.  S.,  History  of  Java  ; 
341. 

Rahmdohr,  F.  W.  B.  von,  Venus 
Urania,  17U8  ;  6,  9, 117,  2W>  773. 

Ilamabai  Saravasti,  The  High 
Caste  Hindu  Woman  ;  170,  321, 
650,  652,  6.14,  657,  658,  660,  661. 

Rand,  S.  T. ,  Legends  of  the  Mic- 
uiacs;  628. 

Ratzel,  F.,  Volkerkunde  ;  182, 
358,  362. 

Reade,  W.  W.,  Savage  Africa; 
Equatorial  Africa  ;  35,  339. 

Reeves,  E.,  Brown  Men  and  Wom- 
en ;  504. 

Reich,  E.,  Geschichte  des  ehe- 
lichen  Lebens;  93,561,  565,  587. 

Reiusberg- Dtiringsfeld,  Hochzeits- 
buch;  126. 

Renan,  E.,  Le  Cantique  des  Can- 
tiques  ;  223,  725,  726,  728,  729; 
731. 

Reports  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Indian  Affairs. 

Reuleaux,  F.,  Eine  Reise  durch 
Indien  ;  701. 

Revue  d'Anthropologie. 

Ribot,  T.,  Psychologic  des  Senti- 
ments ;  12,  223,  303. 

Richardson,  J.,  Arctic  Searching 
Expedition  ;  338,  599. 

Riggs,  S.  R.,  Dakota.  .  .Ethnog- 
raphy, in  U.  S.  Geogr.  and 
Geol.  Survey  Rocky  Mt.,  Vol. 
IX.;  182,  563,  606,  621. 

Rink,  II.  J.,  Tales  and  Traditions 
of  the  Eskimo  ;  75,  123,  639. 

Rivero  and  Tschudi,  Peruvian  An- 
tiquities ;  242,  319. 

Robertson,  G.  S.,  The  Kaffirs  of 
the  Hindu-Kush  ;  35,  91. 

Robley,  Maj. -Gen.,  Moko :  or 
Maori  Tatooing  ;  248,  260. 

Ilohde,  E.,  Der  Griechische  Ro- 
man ;  5,  21,  115,  118,  119,  732, 
760,  786,  787-792,  793,  805,  807, 
810,  811. 


838     BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND    INDEX   OF   AUTHORS 


Romanes,  G.,  Mental  Evolution  in 

Animals  ;  83. 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,  Winning  of 

the  West ;  156,  579,  585. 
Rossbach,  in  Schenkel's  Bibellexi- 

con  ;  281. 

Rossetti,  C.  G.,  169. 
Roth,  H.  Ling,  Natives  of  Sarawak 

and  British   North  Borneo  ;  29, 

113,  184,  249,  250,  261,  264,  481- 

488. 
Roth,  W.  E.,  Ethnological  Studies 

Among     the    N.     W.     Central 

Queensland    Aborigines,    1897  ; 

104,  420,  425,  432,  445,  447,  460, 

473. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  9,  82. 
Rowney,  H.  B.,  Wild  Tribes  of 

India;    23,    77,    181,   640,   642, 

646,  647. 
Ruttenber,  E.  M.,    Indian   Tribes 

of  Hudson's  River  ;  111. 
Ryder,  E.,  Little  Wives  of  India  ; 

334,  651,  656,  658. 

Saadi,  Gulistan  ;  69,  73,  147,  199, 
296,  700. 

Samuelson,  J.,  India,  Past  and 
Present ;  345. 

Sandwich  Island  Notes,  by 
"  Haole,"  New  York,  1854  ;  522, 
523.  . 

Sappho,  116,  137,  627,  750-756, 
785,  794,  798. 

Schon,  Grammar  of  the  Hausa 
Language  ;  399. 

Schomburgk,  R.,  Reisen  in  Brit- 
isch-Guiana  ;  312,  587,  601. 

Schoolcraft,  H.  R.,  History,  Con- 
dition and  Prospects  of  the  Ind- 
ian Tribes  of  the  United  States 
(Archives  of  Aboriginal  Knowl- 
edge) ;  Oneota  ;  The  Myth  of 
Hiawatha  ;  Algic  Researches ; 
Travels  Through  the  North- 
western Regions  of  the  United 
States;  57,  60,  63,  76,  83,  97, 


111,  160,  162,  183,235,270,  275, 
313,  545-552,  553-555,  558,  564, 
567,  572,  574,  576,  577,  578,  580, 
582,  583,  590,  592,  595,  600,  608, 
609,  618,  623,  628,  630,  634,  635. 

Schopenhauer,  Werke ;  146,  149, 
153;  528,  817. 

Schroeder,  L.  v.,  Hochzeitsge- 
brauche  der  Esteu  ;  Indien's  Lit- 
teratur  und  Cultur ;  126,  127, 
129,  195,  694. 

Schiirmann,  C.  W.,  in  Woods' 
Native  Tribes  of  S.  Australia  ; 
77,  430,  443. 

Schure,  E. ,  Histoire  du  Lied  Alle- 
mand ;  207,  209,  218,  220. 

Schuyler,  Eugene,  Turkestan  ;  81. 

Schwaner,  C.  A.,  Borneo  ;  99, 178, 
293. 

Schweinfurth,  G.,  The  Heart  of 
Africa;  211,  214,  240 

Scott,  Walter,  109,  148,  166. 

Seemann,  B.,  Viti ;  490,  492,  497, 
512. 

Sellar,  W.  Y..  Roman  Poets  of 
the  Republic,  1863  ;  802. 

Semon,  R.,  In  the  Australian 
Bush  ;  446. 

Shakespere,  10,  65,  72,  85,  104, 
109,  133,  134,  138,  139,  141,  149, 
153,  167,  217,  218,  220,  229,  327, 
669. 

Shelley,  P.  B.,  6. 

Shooter,  J.,  The  Kaffirs  of  Natal 
and  the  Zulu  Country  ;  150,  335, 
338,  376,  378,  381,  382,  384. 

Shortland,  E.  S.,  Traditions  and 
Superstitions  of  the  New  Zeal- 
anders  ;  536-539,  540,  542,  543. 

Smith,  Donaldson,  Through  Un- 
known African  Countries  ,  408, 
410,  411. 

Smith,  E.  R.,  The  Araucanians  ; 
100,  122,  177,  590,  596,  614, 
618. 

Smith,  James  (cited  Bancroft,  I.)  ; 
183,  557. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY    AND   INDEX   OF   AUTHORS     839 


Smith,  W.  R.,  Marriage  and  Kin- 
ship in  Early  Arabia  ;  25,  31, 
32. 

Smithsonian  Reports  of  the  Bureau 
of  Ethnology,  etc.  . 

Smyth,  Brough,  Aborigines  of  Vic- 
toria ;  61.  238,  240,  245,  247,  256, 
257,  258,  262,  264,  278,  326,  418, 
421,  432,  438,  442,  446,  449,  451, 
454,  460,  466. 

Smy  the,  W.  J. ,  Ten  Months  on  the 
Fiji  Islands  ;  278. 

Sophocles,  760-764,  785. 

Southey,  R.,  History  of  Brazil  ; 
89,  263,  561,  590. 

Speke,  J.  H.,  Discovery  of  the 
Source  of  the  Nile  ;  279,  387, 
388. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  Principles  of 
Psychology  ;  Principles  of  So- 
ciology ;  Descriptive  Sociology  ; 
11,  17,  112,  124,  237,  240,  276, 
300,  312,  330,  333,  348,  423,  439, 
450. 

Spencer  and  Gillen,  Native  Tribes 
of  Central  Australia,  1899  ;  114, 
417,  426,  435-440,  454,  456,  458, 
473. 

Spix  and  Martius,  Travels  in  Brazil 
in  1817-1820;  256,  312,  328, 
588. 

Squier,  E.  G  ,  Nicaragua  ;  233, 
253,  609. 

Stanley,  H.  M.,  How  I  found  Liv- 
ingstone ;  My  Early  Travels  and 
Adventures  ;  284,  398,  623. 

Steele,  R.,  The  Lover;  15,  168, 
220,  301. 

Steineu,  Karl  von  den,  Durch 
Central  Brasilien  ;  557. 

Stephens,  Edward,  Journal  of 
Royal  Soc.  New  South  Wales, 
Vol.  XXXIII.  ;  422-425,  427, 
444. 

St.  John,  S.,  Life  in  the  Forests  of 
the  Far  East ;  28,  58,  183,  249, 
323,  481,  482,  483,  486,  488. 


Stockton,  Frank,  195. 

Stoll,  Otto,  Zur  Ethnographic  der 

Rep.  Guatemala  ;  624. 
Strong,  J.  C.,  Wa-Kee-Nah  ;  592. 
Sturt,  C.,  Expedition  into  Central 

Australia  ;   234,    277,    421,    425, 

426,  438,  439,  440,  449. 
Sully,  J.,  Teacher's  Handbook  of 

Psychology  ;  258. 
Sutherland,  A.,  Origin  and  Growth 

of   the   Moral    Inst.iuct  ;  42,  87, 

124,  159,  344,  431,  438. 
Symonds,   J.    A.,   Studies  in  the 

Greek  Poets  ;  752. 

Taplin,  G.,  In  Woods'  Native 
Tribes  ;  240,  277,  329,  419,  423, 
424,  425,  429,  431,  444,  461. 

Tawney,  C.  H.,  The  Kathakoca, 
or  Treasury  of  Stories  ;  74. 

Taylor,  R.,  Te  Ika  a  Maui  ;  or, 
New  Zealand  and  its  Inhabi- 
tants ;  257,  260,  536,  540. 

Tennyson,  142,  146,  222,  226. 

Terence,  80,  94,  117,  782,  793. 

Theal,  G.  M.,  Kaffir  Folk-Lore, 
1886  ;  372,  379,  382-384,  398. 

Theocritus,  116,  137,  138,  140, 
142,  143, 152,  296,  786,  790,  792, 
793-795. 

Thomson,  A.  S.,  New  Zealand ; 
544. 

Thomson,  J.,  Through  Masai  Land ; 
233,  386. 

Thunberg,  C.  P.,  An  Account  of 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  in  Pin- 
kerton's  Coll.  of  Voyages,  Vol. 
XVI.  ;  275,  364. 

Thwaites,  R  G.,  Jesuit  Relations, 
editor. 

Tibullus,  80,  140,  144,  204,  787, 
801. 

Torquemada,  J.  de,  Monarquia 
Indiana  ;  567. 

Tregear,  E.,  The  Maoris  in 
Journ.  Anthr.  Inst.  1889;  111, 
523,  539,  540,  543. 


840     BIBLIOGRAPHY   AND    INDEX   OF   AUTHORS 


Trumbull,  H.,  History  of  Indian 
Wars  ;  563. 

Trumbull,  H.  C.,  Studies  in  Ori- 
ental Social  Life ;  200,  708,  723. 

Tschudi,  J.  J.  von.,  Reisen  durch 
Siid  Amerika  ;  Travels  in  Peru; 
see  also  Rivero  ;  173,  567,  588, 
601,  610. 

Tuckey,  J.  K.,  Expedition  to  Ex- 
plore the  River  Zaire  ;  236,  257. 

Turgenieff,  302. 

Turner,  G.,  Nineteen  Years  in 
Polynesia  ;  Samoa  ;  33,  262,  329, 
498,  501. 

Tyler,  J.,  Forty  Years  Among  the 
Zulus  ;  381. 

Tylor,  E.  B.,  Primitive  Culture; 
Anthropology  ;  20,  32,  233,  234, 
242,  243. 

Tyrrell,  Across  the  Sub-Arctics  of 
Canada ;  325. 


Ulrici,  H.,  Shakspere's  Dramatic 
Art  ;  85. 

United  States  Geographical  and 
Geological  Survey  of  the  Rocky 
Mountain  Region  ;  same  of  Colo- 
rado. 

D'Urville,  Dumont,  Voyage  de 
1'Astrolabe ;  248,  262. 


Vail,  E.  A. ,  Les  Indiens  de  1'Amer- 

ique  du  Nord  ;  581. 
Vambery,  A.,  The  Turkish  Peo- 
ple; 313. 
Varigny,  De,  Quartorze  Ans  aux 

Isles  Sandwich  ;  43. 
"Vason,"  Four  Years'  Residence 

at  Tongataboo  ;  340. 
Verplanck,  G.  C.,  The  Illustrated 

Shakespeare  ;  86. 
'Vespucci,  Amerigo,  Four  Voyages. 

Quaritch  Transl. ,  London,  1885  ; 

560. 
Virgil,  734,  802. 


Wagner,  R.,  163,  330. 

AVuitz-Gerlaud,  Authropologie  der 
Naturvolker  ;  15,  110,  121,  2:55, 
250,  258,  261,  263,  277,  351,  420, 
421,  424,  426,  430,  460,  464,  466, 
469,  479,  511,  520,  524,  527,  5-15, 
552,  577,  600,  605,  610,  612,  630. 

Wallace,  A.  R.,  Travels  on  the 
Amazon  and  Rio  Negro  ;  Tropi- 
cal Nature  ;  Contributions  to  the 
Theory  of  Natural  Selection  ; 
Darwinism  ;  The  Malay  Archi- 
pelago ;  Australasia  ;  40,  57,  217, 
230,  232,  270,  439. 

Wallaschek,  R.,  Primitive  Music  ; 
382,  618. 

Ward,  Herbert,  Five  Years  with 
the  Congo  Cannibals  ;  255,  261. 

Ward,  Wm.,  History,  Literature 
and  Religion  of  the  Hindus  ;  297, 
662,  663,  697. 

Watson  and  Kaye,  The  People  of 
India;  640. 

Weber,  A.,  History  of  Indfan  Lit- 
erature ;  5,  668,  676,  694,  698, 
700,  705. 

Weber,  Ernst  von,  Vier  Jahre  in 
Afrika;  58. 

Weismaun,  Essays  upon  Heredity^ 
66. 

Westcott,  W.  W.,  Suicide  ;  607. 

Westermarck,  E.,  History  of  Hu- 
man Marriage.  Second  Ed., 
1894  ;  40,  41,  43,  47,  48,  78,  79, 
82,  83,  87,  88,  93,  117,  122,  175, 
176,  202,  211,  212,  231,  239.  243, 
247,  256,  257,  259,  260,  261,  268, 
266,  268,  279,  307,  313,  318,  319, 
322,  324,  338-346,  348,  349,  353, 
358  371,376,394,422,  427.434, 
438,  439,  452,  453,  458,  465,  490, 
492,  504,  540,  561,  566,  570,  578, 
580,  591,  592,  593,  601,  602,  605, 
637,  646,  647,  649. 

Wharton,  II.  T.,  Sappho  ;  751. 

White,  G.,  Historical  Collection  of 
Georgia  ;  630. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY    AND    INDEX   OF   AUTHORS     841 


Wiecl,  Maximiliau  Prinz  zu  ;  Reise 
in  das  Innere  Nord  Ainerikus  ; 
84,  112,  234,  558,  564 

Willielmi,  C.,  in  Woods'  Native 
Tribes  of  South  Australia  ;  238, 
239,  460. 

\Y  i  I  kes,  C. ,  Narrative  of  the  United 
States  Exploring  Expedition, 
1838-1842  ;  238,  449,  492,  504. 

Wilkinson,  G.  B.,  South  Aus- 
tralia; 421,  448. 

Williams,  Monier,  Modern  India 
and  the  Indians  ;  352. 

Williams  and  Calvert,  Fiji  and  the 
Fijians  ;  22,  28,  33,  55,  97,  489. 
490-497. 

Willoughby,  C.,  Smithsonian  Re- 
port, 1886,  Pt.  I.  ;  89,  216,  589. 

Winstanley,  W.,  A  Visit  to  Abys- 
sinia ;  236. 

Wood,  J.  G.,  Natural  History  of 
Man  ;  181,  381,  421. 


Wood,  Robert,  The  Original  Gen- 
ius,  and  Writings  of  Homer, 
London,  1775  ;  6,  734. 

Woods,  J.  D.,  The  Native  Tribes 
of  South  Australia  ;  South  Aus- 
tralia ;  90,  114,  277,  435,  460, 
465. 

Xenophon,  228,  723,  733,  772,  805, 

806. 
Xenophon  Ephesius,  787,  808. 

Yawger,  Rose,  The  Indian  and  the 

Pioneer  ;  573. 
Yonan,     Isaac     Malek,      Persian 

Women.     Nashville,  1898  ;  201. 

Zeitschrift  fur  Ethnologic. 

Zoller,  II.,  Pampas  und  Anden  ; 
Rund  um  die  Erde  ;  Forschungs- 
reisen  in  die  deutsche  Colonie 
Kamerun  ;  38,  39,  54,  57,  270, 
284,  394,  503. 


INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS 


Abipones:  baldness,  237;  tattooing 
courage,  265 ;  cruel  to  women,  587 ; 
parental  tyranny,  (502. 

Abyssinians :  concubinage,  101 ;  women 
not  coy,  113 ;  amulets,  230 ;  choice, 
343;  where  woman  rules,  403;  no 
chance  for  love,  404 ;  pastoral  love, 
405 ;  a  flirtation,  408. 

Achilles  and  Briseis,  736. 

Acontius  and  Cydippe,  795. 

Adoration,  contempt,  and  adulation, 
167-180;  789-791  (see  also  Women: 
maltreatment  of,  and  contempt  for). 

Affection,  206-217,  307,  311,  335,  461, 
636. 

Africans :  mutilations,  243 ;  vanity 
and  emulation,  241 ;  scarification, 
254 ;  beauty  not  appreciated,  270  ; 
corpulence  versus  beauty,  278-280; 
concupiscence  versus  beauty,  284; 
kissing,  294 ;  why  wives  are  valued, 
309 ;  desertion  of  the  aged,  331  ;  "  lib- 
erty of  choice,"  335-339 ;  chapter  on, 
354-415  (see  Table  of  Contents  and 
names  of  peoples  :  Bushmen,  Hot- 
tentots, Kaffirs,  etc.). 

A  in  os :  a  flirtation,  294. 

Algerians  :  Kabyles,  413. 

Algonkins:  tattooing,  252;  words  for 
love,  633. 

Altruism,  13,  153-218  (see  Selfish- 
ness). 

Amazons  (see  Women,  masculine). 

American  Indians  :  fear  of  nature,  20 ; 
honorable  polygamy,  36;  ashamed 
to  wear  clothes,  40 ;  indifference  to 
chastity,  -13  ;  incest,  47  ;  advertising 
for  a  wife,  55  ;  repression  of  prefer- 
ence, 56 ;  utility  versus  beauty,  T>7  ; 
masculine  women,  60  ;  a  girl's  idea), 
63 ;  polygamous  sentiment,  76 ; 


"  jealousy,"  87  ;  absence  of  real  jeal- 
ousy, 88,  89  ;  un jealous  Calif ornians 
and  Patagonians,  92,  93  ;  feminine 
jealousy,  97  ;  absence  of,  98  ;  easily 
overcome,  99 ;  causes  of,  101  ;  pro- 
posals by  girls,  111 ;  capture  of  wom- 
en, 121 ;  pride,  150 ;  cruelty,  155- 
161  ;  contempt  for  women,  170,  173  ; 
kinship  through  females,  174  ;  wom- 
an's domestic  and  political  rule,  176- 
178 ;  ungallant,  182 ;  caressing  no 
evidence  of  affection,  211  ;  war  dec- 
orations, 234;  tattooing,  239,  251- 
253  ;  hair  dresses,  241 ;  valor  versus 
beauty,  259  ;  tattooing  as  a  mark  of 
courage,  264  ;  language  of  signs,  268  ; 
utility  versus  beauty,  270 ;  unclean- 
ly, 275,  277  ;  child-wives,  293  ;  con- 
jugal "  tenderness,"  309  ;  mourning 
to  order,  312-319;  conjugal  grief, 
323  ;  lack  of  brains,  328  ;  "  liberty 
of  choice,"  337  ;  sexual  taboos,  347  ; 
tribal  hatred,  350  ;  chapter  on,  545- 
639  (see  Table  of  Contents)  ;  defend- 
ers, 545  ;  stories,  546-552 ;  not  true 
to  life,  555 ;  morals,  556-571  ;  not 
gallant,  572-589  ;  lower  than  brutes, 
563 ;  enforced  chastity,  but  no  pur- 
ity, 566,  570  ;  why  some  female  cap- 
tives were  spared,  567 ;  squaws  in- 
timidated, 568 ;  beauty  not  valued, 
571 ;  lack  of  sympathy,  579 ;  con- 
tempt for  squaws,  588-593  ;  girl  mar- 
ket, 596;  marringe  arrangements, 
591-605;  elopements,  602-005;  sui- 
cide, 605  ;  love-dreams,  610 ;  curiosi- 
ties of  courtship,  612;  silent  propo- 
sals, 61(5;  music  in  courtship,  617; 
honeymoon,  604,  617;  love-poems, 
619-6^7;  philology  and  love,  623- 
625  ;  more  stories,  627-630. 


844 


INDEX   OF    SUBJECTS 


Animals  :  superior  to  savages,  16,  293, 
384,  430,  563,  655 ;  gallant  roosters, 
181  ;  a  noble  officer,  192 ;  maternal 
instinct,  216  ;  sexual  selection,  230  ; 
superior  to  Hindoos,  655. 

Annamanese  :  incest,  47. 

Antigone  and  Haemon,  762. 

Apaches :  hair.  244  ;  filthy,  275  ;  "pur- 
ity ' '  and  cruelty,  566  ;  cruelty  to 
mothers,  573 ;  enslave  women,  577 ; 
courtship,  591. 

Appetite  and  longing,  293. 

Arabs :  nudity,  37  ;  unjealous,  9:3 ;  un- 
jealous  women,  103  ;  Bedouin  women 
not  coy,  112;  resistance  of  brides, 
122  ;  love  among,  186  ;  shaping  skulls, 
242  ;  corpulence  versus  beauty,  280  ; 
love  and  lust,  297;  one  wife  not 
enough,  311  ;  desertion  of  parents, 
331 ;  influence  on  others,  412. 

Arapahoes :  protection  against  men, 
564 ;  girls  as  merchandise,  598. 

Araucanians  :  brides  sold,  596  ;  bride- 
capture,  614;  musical  lovers,  618. 

Ashangos:  Amazons,  402. 

Ashantees  :  no  free  choice,  339. 

Attachment,  213. 

Australians:  inclined  to  murder,  28; 
infanticide,  30;  indifference  to  chas- 
tity, 42,  90;  jealous  women,  104; 
female  opposition  to  marriage,  120; 
capture  not  encouraged,  125 ;  pro- 
tection not  gallantry,  193;  risking 
life  for  a  woman,  203  ;  war-paint, 
233  ;  mutilations,  238,  243  ;  signs 
of  mourning,  239,  240;  colors  to 
attract  attention,  242;  feathers  to 
look  savage,  246;  scarification,  255; 
women  and  ornaments,  256  el  seqq.\ 
taking  notice  of  a  man's  face,  260; 
must  submit  to  mutilations,  262 ; 
women  indifferent  to  decorations, 
264;  filthy,  277;  "appreciation  of 
beauty,"  277;  child  -  wives,  293; 
mourning  to  order,  315 ;  "  love," 
335 ;  lewd  dances,  329 ;  price  of  a 
wife,  333 ;  chapter  on,  416-475  (see 
Table  of  Contents). 

Azteks  (see  Mexicans). 

Babylonian  women,  184. 
Bakongo :  headdresses,  233. 


Bathing,  reasons  for,  276. 

Bayaderes,  664  et  seqq. 

Beauty,  Personal :  229-287,  390 ;  Hot- 
tentot ideal,  369;  Australian,  416; 
South  Sea  Islanders,  503  ;  not  valued 
in  squaws,  571  ;  Hindoo  ideal,  699; 
Greek  masculine  ideal,  780-781,  784, 
800. 

Bechuanas  :  polygamy,  34. 

Bhuiyas  :  romantic  courtship,  643. 

Bible  (see  Hebrews). 

Blackf  eet :  punishing  infidelity,  84,  87  ; 
maltreatment  of  squaws,  581  ;  "only 
a  woman,"  590 ;  disposal  of  girls,  598 ; 
marrying  sisters,  599 ;  elopements, 
604 ;  courtship,  614. 

Borneans :  marriage  by  stratagem, 
1 13  ;  tattooing,  249  ;  suicidal  grief, 
324  ;  caged  girls,  480  (see  also  Dyaks). 

Brazilians  :  tribal  marks,  242  ;  tattoo- 
ing, 252  ;  lack  of  brains,  328  ;  multi- 
plicity of  languages,  350;  licentious- 
ness, 89,  560  ;  jus primce  noctis,  565; 
women  as  slaves,  588 ;  words  to  ex- 
press love,  624. 

Brides  :  capture  or  purchase  of  (see 
Marriage). 

Bushmen  :  imperfect  sexual  differenti- 
ation, 60  ;  charms,  236  ;  child-wives, 
293;  various  details,  354-362;  no 
liberty  of  choice,  337,  338. 

Butias  :  promiscuity,  642. 

California  Indians :  adultery,  92  ;  tat- 
tooing, 252  ;  uncleanly,  274  ;  volup- 
tuous beauties,  281 ;  deceptive  mod- 
esty, 558  ;  intimidating  the  squaws, 
568  ;  treatment  of  squaws,  573  ;  mar- 
riage, 596,  597 ;  courtship,  613 ;  pu- 
berty songs,  623-625;  stories,  628- 
630,  556; 

Cannibalism  :  Australian,  423. 

Capture  of  brides  (see  Marriage). 

Caribs  :  Columbus  on,  560 ;  jus  primes 
noctfai  565  ;  women  as  drudges,  587. 

Caroline  Islanders  :  tattooing,  256. 

Chansons  de  Geste  :  courting  by  wom- 
en, 118. 

Charms,  236,  381,  456,  610. 

Chastity  and  unchastity,  41-46,  87-93, 
360,  371,  384-386,  406,  410,  413,  428- 
441,  479,  492,  499,  505,  510,  522,  542, 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS 


845 


550-571,  641-643,  662-665,  718-719, 
7.J9,  776,  793,  800. 

Cherokees :  immoral,  565. 

Cheyennes :  protection  against  men, 
5(14  ;  girls  as  merchandise,  598. 

Chinese :  hiding  women's  feet,  40 ; 
feminine  coercion  to  marriage,  120; 
pitiable  condition  of  women,  171 ; 
love  considered  immoral,  227;  why 
deform  women's  feet,  266  ;  marriage 
restrictions,  348. 

Chinooks :  painting,  262 ;  unchaste, 
563 ;  position  of  women,  592 ;  love- 
songs,  626. 

Chippewas  :  husband  and  wife,  326 ; 
lending  wives,  563  ;  cruelty  to  wom- 
en, 581  ;  "choice,"  593 ;  love-pow- 
ders, 611  ;  no  love,  634. 

Chippewyans :  unchaste,  89,  563 ;  love 
and  drums,  618. 

Chittagong  Hill  Tribes  :  capacity  for 
love,  640. 

Choice:  prevention  of,  335-346,  377- 
378,  448,  seqq.  ;  New  Zealand,  540 ; 
Indians,  591-605;  wild  tribes  of  In- 
dia, 645 ;  Hindoos,  651-657. 

Christianity:  vs.  natural  selection,  18; 
prayer,  27 ;  encourages  feminine  vir- 
tues, 180;  ideal  of  love,  720. 

Cleanliness  :  indifference  to,  274-277, 
488. 

Coarseness :  an  obstacle  to  love,  329. 

Comanches  :  utilitarian  marriages,  57 ; 
cruel  jealousy,  87;  filthy,  275;  lower 
than  brutes,  563;  enforce  chastity  on 
wives,  564. 

Congo :  ornaments  as  fetiches,  236 ; 
mourning,  314 ;  wives  esteemed  as 
mothers  only,  321;  "poetic  love" 
on,  392. 

Coreans  :  contempt  for  women,  171. 

Corpulence  versus  beauty,  277  seqq., 
369,  418. 

Corrobborees,  429,  436. 

Courage  :  mutilation  a  test  of,  264. 

Courtship  :  Greenland,  135  ;  Creeks, 
183;  Zulu,  380;  Australian,  473; 
Torres  Islands,  476-480;  Dyaks, 
483,484;  New  Zealand,  539;  Apaches, 
591  ;  Omahas,  594 ;  curiosities  of 
Indian,  612  ;  Bhuiyas,  644  ;  Hindoo, 
653;  Greek,  788,  813. 


Coyness,  109-133  (see  Table  of  Con- 
tents); 380,  476-478,  625,  648,  715. 

Creeks  :  masculine  women,  60  ;  decep- 
tive modesty,  558  ;  immoral,  565  ; 
women  as  slaves,  583  ;  contempt  for 
women,  590 ;  choice  and  marriage, 
592 ;  suicides,  608. 

Crees :  unchastity,  88. 

Cruelty:  155  scqq.  ;  in  women,  1G1  ; 
an  obstacle  to  love,  331  ;  of  Indians. 
579-580 :  of  Hindoos,  651-661  ;  of 
Greeks,  747  (see  Women,  maltreat- 
ment of). 

Dahomans :  signs  of  grief,  240 ;  com- 
pulsory mourning,  313 ;  Amazons, 
402. 

Dakotas:  honorable  polygamy,  36; 
similarity  of  sexes,  60 ;  gallantry, 
182,  187  ;  war-decorations,  234,  235  ; 
paint,  238;  uncleanly,  27'5;  lower  than 
brutes,  563 ;  market  value  of  chas- 
tity, 563 ;  maltreatment  of  squaws, 
579;  sorrows  of  women,  589;  du- 
posal  of  girls,  597  ;  honeymoon,  604  ; 
suicide,  608 ;  love-charms,  61.1  ;  court- 
ship, 614;  love-poems,  619-622;  a 
love-story,  £30-631. 

Damaras  :  lack  of  sympathy,  158  ;  un- 
cleanly, 275 ;  temporary  marriages, 
310. 

Decorations,  personal :  233  seqq. 

Delawares  :  treatment  of  squaws,  584  ; 
suicide,  609. 

Dyaks  :  head-hunters,  28 ;  gallantry, 
183 ;  scars  and  courage,  264  ;  charms 
of  worn  en,*  481  ;  morals,  482  ;  court- 
ship, 483,  484;  fickle  and  shallow 
passion,  486  ;  love-songs,  487. 

Dying  for  love,  698. 

Egyptians  :  obscenity  in  tombs,  25  ; 
love,  1 85  ;  child-wives,  293. 

Elopements :  philosophy  of  Austra- 
lian, 452;  why  Indians  elope,  602-. 
605. 

Eskimos  :  no  morality  or  chastity,  88 ; 
not  modest  or  coy,  123 ;  ungallant, 
182  ;  risking  life  for  a  woman,  203 ; 
assaults,  237  ;  mutilations,  238  ;  tat, 
tooing,  251  ;  tattoo  marks  and  hus- 
bands, 26(5;  filthy,  274;  "  love-un. 


846 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS 


ions,"  325;   capacity  for  love,  637- 

639. 

Esthetic  sense,  258  (see  Beauty). 
Esthonians  :  mock  coyness,  126. 

Fashion  and  mutilation,  265.  • 

Females  :  kinship  thorough,  174. 

Feminine  ideals  :  superior  to  mascu- 
line, 63-65  ;  encouraged  by  Christi- 
anity, 180  ;  Greek  ignorance  of,  778. 

Fetiches,  236. 

Fijians  :  murder  a  virtue,  28  ;  infanti- 
cide, 33  ;  preference,  55  ;  similarity 
of  sexes,  60 ;  jealousy,  97 ;  proposal 
by  a  girl,  110;  feathers  to  attract  at- 
tention, 235,  246 ;  eat  useless  wives, 
331 ;  choice,  339  ;  cleanliness,  489 ; 
treatment  of  women,  490  ;  modesty 
and  chastity,  492 ;  sentimentality, 
494  ;  love-poems,  494  ;  serenades  and 
proposals,  496;  suicides  and  bache- 
lors, 497. 

Fondness,  214. 

Fuegians :  marriage,  601. 

Gallantry  :  180-194  ;  a  lesson  in,  387 ; 
American  Indians,  572-589 ;  wild 
tribes  of  India,  647;  Greeks,  204, 
748,  789  ;  Hebrews,  772. 

Gallas  :  coarseness  of,  408. 

Garos  :  proposing  by  girls,  648. 

Gipsies  :  incest,  47. 

Greeks  :  Hegel  on  love,  4  ;  love  in  Ho- 
mer, 6;  Wood,  Shelley,  6,  7;  Ma- 
caulay,  Bulwer,  Gautier,  8 ;  senti- 
mentality, 18 ;  no  love  of  romantic 
scenery,  21  ;  incest,  47,  50  ;  jealousy, 
94,  V>7  ;  Homeric  women  not  coy,  114  ; 
women  the  embodiment  of  lust,  115  ; 
masculine  coyness,  116  ;  shy  women, 
117;  war  and  love,  118;  mercenary 
coyness,  129;  mixed  moods  in  love, 
137 ;  amorous  hyperbole,  138-146  ;  ar- 
tificial symptoms,  152;  sympathy  de- 
nounced by  Plato,  162 ;  estimate  of 
women,  168 ;  unchivalrous,  188 ;  risk- 
ing life  for  a  woman,  203  :,  suicide  and 
love,  204,  205 ;  love  turns  to  hate,  217; 
woman-love  considered  sensual,  228 ; 
attitude  toward  female  beauty,  286  ; 
sensual  love,  296  ;  barrenness  a  cause 
of  divorce,  321  ;  chapter  on  Greek 


love,  732-814 ;  champions  of,  731  ; 
Gladstone  on  the  women  of  Homer, 
734  ;  Achilles  as  a  lover,  736  ;  words 
versus  actions,  737-739 ;  Odysseus, 
libertine  and  ruffian,  740 ;  Penelope 
as  a  model  wife,  743  ;  conjugal  ten- 
derness of  Hector,  745-747  ;  barbar- 
ous treatment  of  women,  747-759  ; 
love  in  Sappho's  poems,  750  ;  Anacre- 
on  and  others,  756  ;  woman  and  love 
in  ^Eschylus,  757 ;  in  Sophocles,  760  ; 
in  Euripides,  765  ;  romantic  love  for 
boys,  771 ;  Platonic  love  excludes 
women,  774;  made  impossible  in 
Sparta,  776  ;  preference  for  mascu- 
line women  and  beauty,  778-781 ; 
Oriental  costumes,  781  ;  love  in 
life  and  in  literature,  782-785; 
in  Greater  Greece,  785  ;  seventeen 
symptoms,  787 ;  Alexandrian  chiv- 
alry, 789;  the  New  Comedy,  792; 
Theocritus  and  Callimachus,  793 ; 
Medea  and  Jason,  796 ;  poets  and 
hetairai,  799 ;  no  stories  of  romantic 
love,  813-830;  romances,  806-814; 
marriage  among,  749,  776,  788. 

Greenlanders :  indifferent  to  chastity, 
45;  courtship,  135. 

Guatemalans  :  brides  selected  for  men, 
600  ;  erotic  philology,  624. 

Guiana:  war-paint,  237;  tattooing,  253; 
women  as  drudges,  287 ;  marriage  ar- 
rangements, 601. 

Harari :  amorous  hyperbole,  144  ;  love- 
poems,  412. 

Hawaiians  :  infanticide,  33 ;  nudity, 
38 ;  indifference  to  chastity,  43 ;  in- 
cest, 47  ;  similarity  of  sexes,  60 ;  un- 
gallant,  181 ;  mutilations,  240;  mourn- 
ing, 316 ;  personal  appearance,  503  ; 
love-stories,  516-521 ,  524  ;  quality  of 
love,  521 ;  morals,  522-524. 

Head-hunters,  28. 

Heads  :  moulded,  241,  242. 

Hebrews :  women  not  coy,  114 ; 
champions  for,  707;  stories,  709- 
718 ;  no  sympathy  or  sentiment,  718  ; 
a  masculine  ideal  of  womanhood, 

719  ;  not  the  Christian  ideal  of  love, 

720  ;     unchivalrous     slaughter     of 
women,  722;   Song  of  Songs,    724. 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS 


847 


Hector  and  Andromache,  745. 
Hero  and  Leander,  202,  205. 
Hetairai,  287,  782,  790,  793,  799,  803. 
Hindoos  (see  India). 
Honeymoon  :  among  Indians,  604,  617. 
Hope  and  Despair,  133-137. 
Hottentots  :  courtship,  55  ;  uncleanly, 

275  ;  ugliness,  385 ;  child-wives,  293 ; 

various  details,  362-371. 
Hurons  :  preference  and  aversion,  56 ; 

immorality,   89,   559,   563;     woman 

man's  mule,  582,  583 ;  old  wives  for 

young  men,  599. 
Hyperbole,  137-147. 

Importance  of  Love  (see  Utility). 

Incest,  46-51,  770,  792  (see  Licentious 
Festivals);  horror  of,  46-51,  348, 
459. 

India  :  Hindoos  :  immorality  in  relig- 
ion, 34-25;  idea  of  politeness,  39; 
of  modesty,  40;  incest,  47;  mixed 
moods  in  love,  137;  arousing  pride, 
151  ;  sham  altruism,  164 ;  contempt 
for  women,  170 ;  ungallant,  184  ;  im- 
purity, 236;  idea  of  beauty,  397; 
widow-burning,  319;  conjugal  "de- 
votion," 330 ;  barren  wives  discarded. 
331  ;  cruelty  to  infant  wives,  334 ; 
"maiden's  choice,"  345;  chapter  on, 
650-706  ;  child  murder  and  marriage, 
650 ;  parental  selfishness,  651  ;  below 
brutes,  655 ;  contempt  for  women, 
657;  widows  and  their  tormentors, 
659;  depravity,  662-6B5  ;  symptoms 
of  love :  feminine,  C68-673  ;  mascu- 
line, 673-676;  artificial  symptoms, 
694;  god  of  love,  6%;  dying  for 
love,  698;  what  Hindoo  poets  admire 
in  women,  699 ;  shrewd  selfishness, 
701 ;  bayaderes  and  princesses  as 
heroines,  703 ;  marriages  of  choice 
not  respectable,  704. 

India :  Wild  Tribes  :  religious  sacri- 
fices, 24;  filthy,  375-276;  practical 
promiscuity,  641-643  ;  romantic  cus- 
toms, 643  ;  choice,  644  ;  courtship, 
647  ;  proposing  by  girls,  648  ;  attach- 
ments, 649. 

Indians  (see  American  Indians). 

Individ  lal  preference,  9,  54-70,  62,  361, 
364,  376,  379,  736. 


Infanticide  :  30,  424,  489,  522. 

Intelligence  :  importance  of,  to  beauty, 
2b5. 

Iroquois  :  feathers  and  rank,  242 ;  no 
love,  325;  licentious  festivals,  559; 
cruelty  to  mothers,  573 ;  woman 
man's  servant,  582 ,  love  the  last 
product  of  civilization,  635. 

Jacob  and  Rachel,  707-714. 

Japanese :     concubines,    103 ;    lover's 

pride,    149 ;    contempt  for  women, 

171,    173;    no  love-marriages,   227; 

tattooing,  353. 
Javanese :    marriage  before   puberty, 

293  ;  no  liberty  of  choice,  341 . 
Jealousy  :  Rousseau  on,  9  ;  chapter  on, 

82-108  (see  Table  of  Contents)  ;  386, 

440,  443. 
Jus  primae  noctis  :  44,  460,  565. 

Kaffirs  :  cattle  versus  women,  55  ;  pride 

vs.  love,  58  ;  pride  to  aid  love,  150  ; 

uncleanly,    277 ;    child-wives,    293 ; 

no  free  choice,  335-337,  339  ;  various 

details,  371-384. 

Kaffirs  of  Hindu-Kush  :  unjealous,  91. 
Kamerun  :   nudity,   39  ;  no  individual 

preference,  54  ;  no  love  in,  394. 
Kandhs  :  licentious  festivals,  643. 
Klamath  Indians  :  erotic  songs,  624. 
Korumbas,  promiscuity,  642. 
Kukis  :  unchastity,  642. 
Kwakiutl  Indians  :  love-songs,  626. 

Languages :  multiplicity  of,  350. 

Latuka :  polygamy,  35. 

Lepchas,  promiscuity,  642. 

Levirate,  344. 

Licentious  festivals,  47;  Kaffir,  374; 
Australian,  441  (see  Corrobborees)  ; 
Hawaiians,  523  ;  American  Indians, 
559;  India,  642. 

Liking,  213. 

Longing,  141,  293,  633. 

Love,  conjugal:  nature  of,  304-307; 
mistakes  regarding,  307-326;  Afri- 
can, 311,  357-362;  365-367,  370,  376, 
389,  404 ;  Australian,  419-422,  461 ; 
Dyak,  486;  Fijian,  489;  Hawaiian, 
523  ;  New  Zealand,  544  ;  Indian,  323, 
572-591,  631,  636;  Hindoo,  657; 
Greek,  740-740  ;  757-771. 


848 


INDEX    OF    SUBJECTS 


Love-letters:  African,  414;  Austra- 
lian, 474  ;  Hawaiian,  525. 

Love :  pathologic,  223,  776. 

Love-poems:  Turkish,  81 ;  Fijian,  110, 
494;  Somali,  280;  Esthonian,  333; 
Hottentot,  370;  Harari,  412;  New 
Zealand,  536-538;  Indian,  619-627; 
Hindoo,  668-676;  Song  of  Songs, 
724 ;  Greek,  732-802. 

Love,  primitive,  3-6,  14,  54-153,  169- 
173,  178,  181-190,  195-216,  225-228, 
269-272,  277-284,  292-303,  307-311, 
320-322,  332-346,  354-814,  passim. 

Love,  romantic,  a  compound,  9;  the 
word,  15 ;  last  product  of  civiliza- 
tion, 16  ;  importance  of,  18  ;  what  it 
is,  52  ;  ingredients,  53  ;  jealousy  in, 
108  ;  power  of,  146  ;  hyperbole,  146 ; 
comic  side  of,  148  ;  symptoms,  152  ; 
sympathy,  166;  adoration,  167;  ac- 
tions versus  words,  204 ;  affection, 
209  :  mental  purity,  218 ;  'definition 
of,  287 ;  why  called  romantic,  289 ; 
sentiment,  299 ;  vanity  of,  901  ; 
changed  to  conjugal  love,  304 ;  ob- 
stacles to,  327-353 ;  Baker  on  Afri- 
can, 389;  Zoller  on  African,  395; 
absent  in  Abyssinia,  407 ;  among 
Bushmen,  360;  Hottentots,  369; 
Kaffirs,  377  ;  negroes,  389,  395  ;  Gal- 
las,  409  ;  Somals,  411  ;  Kabyles,  413 ; 
Touaregs,  413 ;  germs.  414;  Austra- 
lian "  affection,"  461  ;  sentimental 
touches,  470  ;  Dyak  love,  486  ;  Fijian 
love,  494  ;  Tahitian  love,  506  ;  Poly- 
nesian stories,  520  ;  Hawaiian  love, 
522 ;  its  violence  compared  with  sen- 
sual passion,  527  ;  to  be  found  in  New 
Zealand  ?  535,  542-544  ;  unchastity 
incompatible  with,  562  ;  Indian  "re- 
fined love,"  570  ;  does  suicide  prove 
love?  605-610;  philologic  evidence, 
623-625  ;  Indian  specimens,  631-637 ; 
whole  tracts  of  feeling  unknown  to 
savages,  641  ;  unknown  to  Hindoos, 
694-705 ;  to  Hebrews,  709-714,  718, 
720,731;  to  Greeks,  736-739;  750- 
757 ;  utility  of,  815-825. 

Madagascar  :  unchastity,  90. 
Mahabharata,  662,  694. 
Makololo :  mutilations,  242. 


Malavika  and  Agnimitra,  685-688. 

Mandans :  women  not  jealous,  100 ; 
not  coy,  112  ;  obliged  to  mourn,  312  ; 
apparent  modesty,  557;  lower  than 
brutes,  563;  "conjugal  love,"  578; 
brides  sold,  579. 

Maoris  (see  New  Zealanders). 

Marriage :  polygamy  more  honorable 
than  monogamy,  34-o7  ;  monopolism 
and  monogamy,  71-82  ;  chastity  not 
valued  in,  41-46,  87-93,  431-441,  559- 
570;  utilitarian,  57-59,  307;  wives 
as  property,  83  ;  on  trial,  79,  186, 
482,  563 ;  a  farce,  187 ;  and  corpu- 
lence, 277-280,  309,  369-370;  why 
savages  value  wives,  307-311,  321, 
572 ;  of  women,  without  choice  (see 
Choice)  ;  in  China,  120,  348 ;  love 
in  Bushman,  357-362 ;  why  Aus- 
tralians marry,  441  ;  by  exchange  of 
girls,  450  ;  by  elopement  (see  Elopo- 
ments)  ;  taboos,  459 ;  of  souls,  162 ; 
by  stratagem,  113  ;  Christian  ideal  vs. 
ancient  Hebrew,  712 ;  in  Greece,  749, 
776,  788  ;  Plato's  ideal,  775 ;  in  Tonga, 
510;  in  Hawaii,  523;  Indians,  591- 
605,  625 ;  in  India,  653-662  ;  by  capt- 
ure and  mock  capture,  121-129,  332- 
334,  374,  448,  540-541,  614  ;  by  pur- 
chase, 41,  46,  57,  333,  335-346,  377, 
393,  411,  596-605,  749;  before  pn- 
berty,  293,  334,  343,  430,  563,  655. 
See  also  Promiscuity. 

Masculine  selfishness  (see  Selfishness). 

Medea  and  Jason,  95,  796. 

Mediaeval  gallantry,  191. 

Melanesians  :  morals,  78. 

Mexicans  :  barrenness  a  cause  of  di- 
vorce, 321  ;  practical  promiscuity, 
567  ;  woman's  inferior  position,  5b'6 ; 
marriage  conditions,  601 ;  Aztek  love- 
poems,  622 ;  erotic  philology,  624. 

Micronesians :  tattooing,  250. 

Militarism  and  feminine  lack  of  coy- 
ness, 117. 

Mishmees :  unchastity,  642. 

Mixed  Moods  (see  Hope  and  Da- 
spair). 

Modesty :  curiosities  of,  37-41  ;  de- 
ception, 542,  557;  absence  of,  368, 
376,  etc.  (see  Chastity). 

Modocs  :    dar,  gers    of    adultery,    567 ; 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS 


849 


why  they  marry,  574  ;  marriage  cere- 
mony, 625. 

Mohammedans :  polygamy,  35 ;  con- 
tempt for  women,  170. 

Mojaves  :  jewels  and  rank,  342 ;  morals, 
564. 

Monopolism,  71-83. 

Moors:  ideas  of  beauty,  280;  ugly 
features,  285% 

Mordvins:  mock  coyness,  126. 

Mosquitos :  lower  than  animals,  565. 

Mourning  :  decorations,  239  ;  to  order, 
31 1  ;  for  entertainment,  315. 

Murder  :  as  a  virtue,  28-34. 

Mutilations,  237. 

Nagas :  ungallant,  181. 

Nala  and  Damayanti,  690-694. 

Natchez  :  lending  wives,  88 ;  unchaste, 
565 ;  treatment  of  squaws,  585. 

Natural  selection:  replaced  by  love, 
18,  19. 

Navajos :  unchastity,  564 ;  treatment 
of  women,  573-577  ;  courtship,  598. 

Negroes,  African  :  feminine  aspect  of 
men,  60;  delight  in  torture,  155; 
scarification,  244 ;  idea  of  beauty, 
330  ;  no  love  among,  389. 

New  Britain  Group  :  paying  for  a  wife, 
340. 

New  Hebrides  :  infanticide,  33. 

New  Zealanders :  masculine  women, 
60;  wooing- house,  111  ;  decorations, 
233 ;  unesthetic,  247  ;  object  of  tat- 
tooing, 248,  257,  260;  filthy,  276; 
origin  of  the  Maoris,  528 ;  love- 
poems,  536-538;  courtship,  539; 
morals,  542. 

Niam-Niam  :  conjugal  love,  211. 

Nicaraguans  :  tattooing,  253 ;  licen- 
tious festivals,  559 ;  eating  a  rival, 
609. 

Nudity  (see  Modesty). 

Obscenity  :  an  obstacle  to  love,  329. 

Odysseus  as  a  husband,  740. 

Old  maids,  193. 

Omalias :  tribal  marks,  243  ;  tattoo- 
ing, 252;  courtship,  594;  buying 
wives,  and  elopements,  604 ;  an  idyl, 
619;  love-poems,  619-621. 


Onions:  promiscuity,  642;  courtship, 
647. 

Oriental  ideal  of  beauty,  280;  senti- 
mentality, 298. 

Osages  :  tattooing,  252  ;  unchaste,  564. 


Pacific  Islands  :  love  on,  476-544. 
Paharias  :  attachment,  649. 

Ilai&pcuma,      163,     757,     771-774,     776, 

779,  794,  7%,  802,  806. 

Papuans  :  nudity,  39. 

Pastoral  love,  329,  405,  794. 

Patagonians :  adultery,  93 ;  decora- 
tions, 233  ;  no  esthetic  sense,  246 ;  li- 
centiousness, 565  ;  women  as  drudges, 
588 ;  marriages,  601  ;  a  courtship, 
615. 

Paul  and  Virginia,  49. 

Pawnees  :  apathy  of  brides,  55  ;  daugh- 
ters as  merchandise,  598  ;  courtship, 
612. 

Penelope  as  a  model  wife,  743. 

Perseus  and  Andromeda,  791. 

Persians  :  cruel  jealousy,  93  ;  un  jealous 
women,  103 ;  amorous  hyperbole, 
139,  147;  love  among,  199-202;  im- 
purity, 225. 

Peruvians :  mutilations,  237 ;  sun  vir- 
gins, 567 ;  cruel  to  women,  587 ; 
marriage,  600  ;  love-charms,  610  ; 
words  to  express  love,  624. 

Philippine  Islanders  :  Bisayos,  indif- 
ferent to  chastity,  44 ;  women  not 
jealous,  9. 

Piutes  :  nocturnal  courtship,  613. 

Pocahontas,  story  of,  632. 

Polynesians :  gods,  22 ;  infanticide,  31  ; 
proposals  by  women,  110;  tattooing, 
250 ;  reasons  for  bathing,  276 ;  beauty 
means  fat,  278. 

Pride,  amorous,  148-153. 

Priestesses,  173,  567,  574. 

Promiscuity,  practical,  79,  87,  89,  371- 
376,  386,  435-440,  523,  543,  567,  559- 
571,  641-645,  776-777. 

Proposing :  by  women,  109-114,  117, 
119,  476-480,  648 ;  in  Fiji,  496 ;  si- 
lent, by  Indians,  616. 

Puberty :  decorations  and  mutilations 
at,  261 ;  marriage  before  (see  Mar- 
riage). 


850 


INDEX  OF   SUBJECTS 


Pueblos :  girls  propose,  111  ;   unchas- 

tity,  560. 

Purchase  of  brides  (see  Marriage). 
Purity,  mental,  218-239,  572,  771-776. 

Race  aversion,  349. 

Rebekah,  the  courting  of,  714. 

Religion :  no  love  in  early,  21  ;  fear, 
blasphemy,  sacrifices,  22 ;  immorality 
associated  with,  25. 

Religious  prejudices,  353. 

Romans :  refined  sensual  love,  80  ;  mer- 
cenary coyness,  130  ;  amorous  hyper- 
bole, 138-144;  sham  gallantry,  189; 
suicide  and  love,  205 ;  Terence  and 
Plautus,  793;  Catullus,  Tibullus, 
Propertius  and  Ovid,  801-802. 

Romantic,  meaning  of,  15,  289. 

Ruth  and  Boaz,  715-718. 

Sakuntala,  677-680. 

Samoans  :  idea  of  modesty,  39 ;  ob- 
scene conversation,  329;  various 
traits,  498  ;  chastity,  499  ;  courtship 
pantomime,  500;  love-stories,  501- 
503 ;  personal  appearance,  503. 

Samoyedes  :  selfish  men,  154. 

Savitri,  688-690. 

Scarification,  254. 

Scenery,  romantic,  20,  512,  795. 

Selfishness,  153-155,  307-311  ;  317-321 
(see  Women,  maltreatment  of; 
Adoration,  Sympathy,  Gallantry, 
Affection). 

Self-sacrifice,  195-206 ;  631,  633,  701. 

Sensuality,  antipode  of  love,  14 ;  fas- 
tidious, is  not  love,  61  ;  Goethe's  er- 
ror, 208  ;  appetite  and  longing,  292- 
297 ;  and  sentimentality,  298  (see 
Chastity). 

Sentiment,  versus  sentimentality,  299, 
300. 

Sentimentality,  18,  298-300,  494,  702, 
736-739,  758,  765-767,  788. 

Sentiments :  how  they  change  and 
grow,  19-51. 

Separation  of  the  sexes,  346. 

Sexual  characters,  primary  and  secon- 
dary, 61,  66,  754-756,  815. 

Sexual  selection ,  230  seqq. 

Sexuality,  mental,  64,  754-756. 

Singhalese  :  utilitarian  marriage,  310. 

Sioux  (see  Dakotas). 


Social  barriers  to  love,  351. 

Somali  :  unjealous  wives,  101 ;  fea- 
thers, 246  ;  fat  versus  beauty,  279  ; 
a  love-song,  280  ;  child-wives,  293 ; 
barren  women  chased  away,  321 ;  ab- 
sence of  gallantry,  387  ;  love-affairs, 
409. 

Song  of  Songs,  723-731. 

Sorceresses,  174. 

Stories,  incidents,  and  dramas :  Afri- 
can, 58,  382,  390,  396,  397,  398,  399, 
400,  401,  408  ;  American  Indian,  36, 
40,  62,  76,  111,  210,  546,  547,  548, 
549,  550,  551,  552,  594,  595,  597,  609, 
615,  619,  627,  628,  629,  632 ;  Austra- 
lian, 455,  466,  467,  469,  471,  472; 
Eskimo,  75;  Greek,  197,  732-814 
passim;  Hawaiian,  516,  524;  He- 
brew, 709,  714,  715,  723;  Indian 
(Hindoo  and  wild  tribes),  74,  75,  644, 
665,  677,  680,  685,  688,  690;  New 
Zealand,  529,  531,  532,  533  ;  Oriental, 
69;  Polynesian,  209;  Samoan,  501, 
502;  Tahitian,  508;  Tongan,  513, 
514,  515. 

Suicide  and  love,  204,  323,  324,  392, 
579,  605-610,  805. 

Sumatrans :  marriages,  310 ;  selfish 
men,  331 ;  no  choice,  341. 

Swedes :  mock-capture,  128. 

Sympathy,  153-166,  331,  356,  423,  579, 
791. 

Syria  :  idea  of  modesty,  40. 

'  Taboos,  sexual,  347. 

Tahitians  :  tattooing,  39  ;  indifference 
to  chastity,  43;  contempt  for  wom- 
en, 170 ;  compressed  heads,  235 ; 
flowers  and  licentiousness,  247  ; 
mourning,  316  ;  personal  appearance, 
504 ;  depraved  by  white  visitors  ? 
504. 

Tasmanians :  charms,  238 ;  mourning, 
311. 

Taste,  disputing  about,  272. 

Tattooing,  247-270. 

Temple  girls,  Hindoo,  664  seqq. 

Thibet  :  unchastity,  91  ;  woman's 
wretched  lot,  170. 

Thlinkeets  :  exchanging  wives,  89 ; 
war-paint,  234 ;  mutilations,  271  ; 
suicide,  608. 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS 


851 


Todas :  unjealous,  92. 

Tongans:  tattooing,  39;  beads  and 
vanity,  268 ;  personal  appearance, 
503 ;  were  they  civilized  ?  510  ;  love 
of  scenery,  512. 

Torres  Strait  Islanders,  475-480. 

Tribal  marks,  241  seqq. 

Tupis  :  no  jealousy,  89. 

Turks :  modesty,  40  ;  love-song,  81 ; 
amorous  hyperbole,  144 ;  arousing 
pride,  151  ;  coarseness,  225 ;  lust  ver- 
sus love,  297 ;  mourning  to  order,  313. 

Uganda :  nudity,  39  ;  disposal  of  wom- 
en, 388. 

Un  chastity  (see  Chastity). 

(Jrvasi,  680-685. 

Utility  of  lore,  18,  19,  104-108,  131, 
165, 193,  206,  216,  218-221,  815-825. 

Vasantasena,  665  6(58. 

Ved.lahs :  incest,  47. 

Virginity  :  penetrative,  228 ;  indiffer- 
ence to,  see  Chastity. 

Votyaks  :  indifference  to  chastity,  44; 
mock  capture,  128. 


War,  an  obstacle  to  love,  330. 

Whites  :  did  they  corrupt  savages  ?  42, 
422,  427,  504-506,  559. 

Widows  :  tormented  in  India,  659 ; 
burning  of,  317,  661. 

Winona's  leap,  605. 

Wives  (see  Marriage). 

Women  :  homage  to  priestesses,  173 ; 
domestic  rule,  176 ;  political  rule, 
177  ;  is  gallantry  an  "  insult  ?  "  192 ; 
pugnacious,  446 ;  crueler  than  men, 
161,  463;  woman's  sphere,  64-67, 
754-756;  maltreatment  of  and  con- 
tempt for,  169-173,  317,  332,  305-367, 
377,  419-421,  490,  506,  540,  572-589, 
650-662,  722,  747,  759,  774,  789; 
masculine  women,  60, 118,  361,  364, 
403,  414,  446-448.  503,  719,  776-781 ; 
no  liberty  of  choice  (see  Choice). 

Wooing :  by  women  (see  Propos- 
ing). 


Yucatan  :   war  decorations,  235 ;  tat- 
tooing, 253. 
_  Y.  unoas :  immorality,  565. 

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